"My Dad worked in computer manufacturing, so we always had computers and spare parts around the house to tinker with when I was growing up. I saw them more as fun toys to play with rather than a career aspiration. That changed while I was working on my senior research project at Wesleyan. I'd spent months unsuccessfully trying to levitate a droplet of liquid so my adviser and I could observe how it oscillated. Seeing my frustration, my adviser suggested I try creating a computer simulation. In less than a month, I had a working visualization written in C++ and spent the rest of the year adding features and exploring the physics of fluid dynamics. That experience showed me the power that software has to improve our understanding of the world and set me on my career path."