Building things
beyond the lab

The Motorsports Society at JHU

When I arrived at Johns Hopkins, I quickly realized there was no dedicated space for students who loved motorsports. Not a club, not a community, not even an informal group. For a university chock-full of avid motorsport viewers, that felt like a gap that needed closing.

So I closed it. I founded the Motorsports Society in my freshman year — building it from nothing: finding executive board members, drafting a constitution, starting the application process, and then actually building a membership of people who cared.

What I love about motorsport is that you genuinely can't separate the engineering from the culture or from the racing itself. The sport exists because engineers push materials and aerodynamics to their limits, and those limits play out in front of an audience in real time. That intersection — technical excellence made visceral — is exactly what drew me to mechanical engineering in the first place.

The society is a space for people who feel that too, regardless of their academic background or level of knowledge. Everyone's welcome as long as they're curious.

The Johns Hopkins Black Student Union

The Johns Hopkins Black Student Union has been one of the first communities at Hopkins that made campus feel smaller and more human. It’s a space where students can be ambitious, creative, outspoken, and vulnerable, and I wanted to contribute meaningfully rather than just participate.

I began as a Freshman Class Representative, helping connect first-year students with the broader BSU community and emphasizing the importance of visibility and inclusion on a campus where it’s easy to feel isolated.

I later joined the Research, History, and Education Committee, where I helped document BSU’s history and preserve its institutional memory. That work highlighted how student organizations are shaped by those who came before us and the importance of maintaining those stories.

I also wrote for Perspective Magazine, using writing to engage with campus culture and issues affecting the broader student body, which strengthened my ability to communicate ideas thoughtfully.

Now, as Outreach Committee Chair, I’m focusing on strengthening connections within BSU, across Black affinity organizations, and between Johns Hopkins and the Baltimore community. I’m also working to create clearer pathways for BSU to advocate for Black students and communities on and off campus.

What I value most about BSU is that it serves as both a support system and a platform for growth, where leadership is rooted in service and community.

Marketing Director — The Johns Hopkins Melanotes

When I joined the Melanotes, I was drawn to the organization because of the sense of community it created. At a university as fast-paced as Johns Hopkins, spaces where people genuinely feel seen, supported, and connected matter a lot more than people realize. As Marketing Director, I wanted to help strengthen that sense of connection by shaping how the organization presented itself both online and in person.

My role focused on building engagement and creating a stronger visual identity for the organization through promotional materials, recruitment drives, and event marketing. More than just advertising events, the goal was to create something that felt authentic to the community itself — something people actually wanted to engage with and be a part of.

What I enjoyed most about the role was the balance between creativity and communication. Good marketing is ultimately about understanding people: what resonates with them, what makes them feel included, and how design and messaging can shape the way a community grows. That process of combining creativity, strategy, and collaboration is something I found incredibly rewarding.

Working with the Melanotes also reinforced how important community-building is to me. Whether through engineering organizations, creative work, or student leadership, I’ve realized that a lot of the projects I care about most involve bringing people together around shared interests and creating spaces where people feel welcomed and inspired to contribute.