natalie-drawing.png

hi, i’m natalie! 👋

I'm a 4th-year student at Northwestern University, studying Computer Science with a concentration in Artificial Intelligence.

I'm also pursuing a second major in Classics and a certificate in Human-Computer Interaction.

I’m passionate about the intersection of creative design and programming, with a particular focus on video game development.

featured work

Software Engineering Intern @ Google

12-week internship from Jun - Sep 2025 working on the Google Wallet Access team in San Francisco, CA.

I built a client-side prototyping tool on the Google Developers site and designed a scalable backend URL shortening service for Wallet teams.

Sky’s Odyssey

A 2D platform video game following Sky, a lost elemental sprite and her journey to get home.

SongSpot

A web application integrating Spotify API and AWS to analyze user music preferences and generate personalized recommendations and playlists.

previous experience

natalie-headshot.png

BS in Computer Science @ Northwestern University (graduating June 2026)

  • Concentration in AI, certificate in HCI, double major in Classics

professional highlights

Software Engineering Intern @ Google

  • Launched a client-side prototyping tool on the Google Developers site enabling partners to independently model Google Wallet products.

  • Designed a scalable backened URL shortening service for Wallet teams by creating server-to-server RPCs and a custom database schema to resolve critical card provisioning failures.

Research Assistant @ MUCollective Lab at Northwestern

  • Worked on a Human-AI & Data Visualization project to build an interactive LLM tool to create customizable data visualizations for education.

Research Assistant @ TIILT Lab at Northwestern

  • MusicNU project: Developed a website to use interactive visualizations to teach music theory to Chicago high school students.

  • Gesturecraft project: Trained an ML system to classify hand gestures to adaptively play Minecraft.

Software Development Intern @ Fulcrum Global Technologies

  • Built prototypes and wireframes for an AI data extraction tool for legal workflow automation.

Teaching assistant for Game Design & Development class @ Northwestern

cool projects

Mini games

  • Sky’s Odyssey (Repo): A story-based game where you toggle between elemental states to explore the map, collect crystals, avoid the evil vorax, and return home

  • Sleigh, Santa (Repo): A Holiday-themed game where you have to deliver all the presents to the houses before time runs out or the grinch steals them all

  • Pac-O-Lantern (Repo): My first game – a Halloween-themed arcade game where you collect all the candies and avoid or shoot the ghosts

Chronicles of Dido (Independent research & game design project)

  • Conducted 8 weeks of independent research on the mythical character Dido from the Latin epic the Aeneid, supported by research awards, reexamining her story through a modern feminist lens

  • Most of my research was literary-based, and I was only able to get a design and rough prototype completed before my research period ended. Hopefully I can return to the project in the future!

Adaptive Xbox Controller Joystick (design doc)

  • Worked in a team to design and build a residual limb joystick to interface with the Xbox Adaptive Controller

  • Designed for an upper-arm amputee who wanted to continue playing first-person combat games

key skills

Programming Languages

Java, C#, C, C++, Python, HTML, Typescript, Javascript, CSS, R, MatLab

Tools & Libraries

Unity, Unreal, React.js, Node.js, Lit, Git, scikit-learn, NumPy, Matplotlib, Figma, Lucidchart

Technical Expertise

Scalable system design, backend server architecture, API development, cloud deployment, database design and optimization, frontend development and testing, cross-team collaboration