Kiara is a first-generation student and chose to study the field of engineering because it utilizes the concepts of innovation and construction.
Summer 2019, Kiara worked in Prof. Stephen Forrest’s lab in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan. With the help of her mentor, Kiara mastered the concept of navigating through scientific papers and gained valuable laboratory experience. She also obtained a glimpse of life as a graduate student, and as a result, this REU experience influenced Kiara to attend graduate school.
Outside the lab, Kiara loved playing volleyball and wheelchair basketball at the local gym and enjoyed attending world cup soccer watch parties at the EECS center. Back in Norfolk, she served as a peer mentor and tutor. Kiara has a passion for community enrichment and wants to create a scholarship for high school students interested in STEM. Through research, Kiara believes that she can impact her community more efficiently by understanding science and the world around us and encouraging others to pursue science as well.
After her research experience, Kiara earned her BS in Electrical and Electronics Engineering with a minor in mathematics at Norfolk State University. She then went on to get her MS in Computer Engineering from Virginia Tech. She now works as a nuclear engineer at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard.
