I grew up in Caguas, Puerto Rico. I developed a special interest in Robotics during my participation in the NASA-sponsored Puerto Rico Institute Robotics in high school where I had the opportunity to work in a team to built my first robot. I received a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering and in Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). In my college years, I had the opportunity to be a NASA MUST (Motivating Undergraduates in Science and Technology) scholar. In this program, I participated in summer internships at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab and the NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center, working in different areas ranging from circuits and antennas to robotics.