Pranav Singh

Pranav’s mother told him time and again that “education is the only way to success,” and he’s pursued it doggedly in spite of family hardships that left Pranav, his mother and brother nearly without a place to call home at one point. “Despite my past,” he says, I have been extremely blessed with a fantastic education and a supportive family,” which has enabled him to hold steady on a course to UC San Diego. With an aptitude for STEM subjects, Pranav declared a Biotechnology major and freshman year joined a lab researching alcohol’s effect on the pathogenesis of head and neck cancer. “My findings were recently accepted for publication in Oncology Letters, in which I am a co-first author.” But on his way to a biotechnology degree, he switched gears, literally, to bioengineering. His experience in a mechanical design course – after which he became the professor’s teaching assistant – and on a team vying for first place in a robotics competition showed him the magic of an unfettered creative design process, which ignited a passion for mechanical design. “This experience highlighted the joy of doing novel work without a predefined solution.”

Currently working with faculty on surgical robotics, he aspires to pursue a career in research “so that I can engineer innovative solutions to medical problems to help people.” In the short term he is gathering experience as an intern within the biomedical industry. His long-range dream: to start his own engineering research company focused on the development of exoskeletons and assistive prosthetics, “and to provide a better future for my family.”