[This piece was published as part of the College’s Meet Swarthmore initiative on April 26th, 2021]
Hometown: Denver, Colo.
He Never Saw Himself at Swarthmore
“My dad went to Swarthmore and was part of the class of ’87. As I like to say on my admissions tours, for 18 of my 20 years, I did not want to come to Swarthmore. This is the last place I thought I would end up. I really thought that my college experience would be my own and I would do my own thing. That was until I actually visited Swarthmore and had an overnight with the soccer team, and it totally changed my opinion. I realized that the community that you could build here and the people you interact with daily were things that you couldn’t really find a lot of other places.”
He Wants to Blaze a Trail in Peace Engineering
“To me, peace engineering is like the poster child of a liberal arts education. When I first came to Swarthmore, I was introduced to the Peace & Conflict program through a teammate of mine who knew Professor Sa’ed Atshan very well. I had come to Swarthmore for engineering and wanted to do that from the start, so those two came naturally. I try to think about peace engineering as trying to reframe the way that people go about problem solving. So whether it is an issue with community building or reconstructing a building, it’s all about reframing the way that you’re looking at a problem to not only incorporate issues of optimization or efficiency, but also issues of community, inclusion, diversity, and equity. Blazing the trail for peace engineering after graduation is something that I’m definitely interested in.”
Soccer and Design Help Him Give Back
“Design FC was started by Omri Gal through the Lang Center about two years ago. It’s an afterschool program for design thinking work in an afterschool setting at Stetser Elementary in Chester. We teach design thinking skills to 5th and 6th graders. Now that Omri’s graduated, I’ve taken over the program and I’m in charge of it. Being there really, one, inspired me to work in Chester. It’s an incredible place and an incredible community. And then two, to get involved in a lot of things that I never thought I would get involved with here, like tutoring, mentoring, as well as learning how to use Illustrator for design.”