Leah Buechley
Rural Digital
Albuquerque, NM USA
"Make choices out of love and excitement and passion and interest, and—when coupled with hard work—those will take you to really great places."
Career Roadmap
Leah's work combines: Art, Engineering, and Being Creative
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Day In The Life
Skills &
Education
Advice for getting started
Don't be intimidated by technology. Anyone can enter this field. There are so many opportunities to apply your skills and interests in unique ways.
Here's the path I took:
High School
Bachelor's Degree
Physics, General
Skidmore College
Doctorate
Computer Science
University of Colorado Boulder
Here's the path I recommend for someone who wants to be an Electrical Engineers:
High School
Bachelor's Degree: Art/Art Studies, General
Bachelor's Degree: Engineering, General
Learn more about different paths to this career
Life & Career Milestones
I've taken a lot of twists and turns
1.
She was always very drawn to her math and science classes in school, but outside of the classroom, she was very drawn to the arts.
2.
She often felt torn, because she always felt like she had to choose between the two.
3.
When she first went to college, she was a dance major and wanted to become a professional dancer.
4.
After a few years, she actually missed the academic challenge of math and science; she realized she could continue to perform on the side, but she should get a STEM education.
5.
She earned a B.A. in physics and a Ph.D. in computer science; it wasn’t until she started her postgraduate studies that she realized that she could blend her STEM and arts interests.
6.
Was an assistant professor at the MIT Media Lab, where she led the High-Low Tech research group, which blended arts and crafts with electrical engineering and technology.
7.
In 2006, she created LilyPad Arduino e-textile technology kits, used for embedding electronics in textiles; these kits kicked off a huge DIY wearable electronics movement.
8.
Says that the goal of her inventions and artworks is to make technology more accessible, and to encourage people to be “playful, unafraid, experimental, and curious.”
Defining Moments
How I responded to discouragement
THE NOISE
Messages from Myself:
There is no way I could ever combine art and science, I have to choose one.
How I responded:
My whole life I had experienced this conundrum. When I decided to go to graduate school, I majored in computer science to challenge myself and do something different from art. While there, I discovered that science and art could, in fact, be combined and that opened up a whole new world to me.
Experiences and challenges that shaped me
Growing up in New Mexico, I was always poor as a kid and, because of that, we had to be resourceful and had to solve problems we encountered in imaginative ways.