Julianna S.

Julianna is a freshman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) majoring in Artificial Intelligence & Decision-Making. She is a U.S. Presidential Scholar, the inaugural AIAA Lockheed Marilyn Hewson National High School Scholarship Winner, a National Merit Scholar, a Congressional App Challenge Winner, and a FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) Dean's List Finalist. Throughout her six seasons competing in FIRST, she led three FTC and FIRST Global Challenge (FGC) teams to win 16 state, regional, and international awards. As Lead Coach of FTC 21217 The Phoenixes, Julianna gives back to the FIRST Nevada community through mentorship & workshop curriculum planning and assists in mentoring FTC and FGC teams worldwide. Julianna and The Phoenixes established the first NASA ASTRO CAMP in Nevada in May 2022 and have since held camps for over 730 underserved 6-13 year old students. In 2021, Julianna led a team of NASA interns to conduct and publish research with the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and mentored two NASA teams in conducting research and publishing at AGU in 2022. Julianna created VoluntYOU, an award-winning, 501(c)(3)-backed digital volunteering platform that connects over 500 users to community service opportunities globally. She conducts research on improving human-robot collaboration and computer vision systems using machine learning models at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the University of Nevada, Reno. Long-term, she aspires to earn a graduate degree and develop novel artificial intelligence (AI) architectures that improve autonomous navigation systems throughout her career as an AI engineer.