Faust WhaleFaust Whale

When two of my favorite couples married without inviting me to their weddings, I began questioning how I was showing up in my friendships. This led to the development of Friendshift: assistive technology for being the friend you mean to be (using hardware, software, and behavioral ritualization). We apply executive function support principles — embodied cues, cognitive offloading, reduced-friction outreach flows — to relationship maintenance, helping users close the gap between care and timely outreach, even when overextended.

While at X, the Moonshot Factory, I invented Qi, a maskless personal clean-air bubble that reduced respired airborne particulate by 90% without covering or touching the face. The team I lead, with 25 contributors, developed lightweight prototypes of a wearable or handlebar-mounted system that delivered a light breeze airshield from roughly a 10-watt device operating at library-level sound.

Wanting to continue helping chronically ill people, I interviewed patients at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh about the most difficult parts of their care. Most named needles. Although I couldn’t eliminate procedures requiring them, I could make them less painful and frightening. To this end, I invented a washable, squeezable ball with a friendly face and a tactile ritual that uses somatosensory distraction to reduce pain and distress during blood draws and intravenous placements. A few years later, I licensed Needle Beetle to Mattel through By Kids For Kids, and they reached 180 hospitals nationwide.

I made my first invention to help my mom, who struggled to do her remote pacemaker battery checks unassisted when my brother and I were at school. Pacemate improved the usability, conductivity, and transmission of electrocardiogram signals over phone lines. My school science fair competition won the Student Ideas for a Better America nationwide competition; soon after, I became the youngest inductee in the National Gallery for America’s Young Inventors.