The crash of waves hitting the shore envelops the air. A bloom of glowing blue streaks dot the edge of the waves lapping against the shore, lighting up the cool night beach. The salty air from the rising and falling waves brush past people along the shoreline. Deeya Verma (’25) crouches down to examine the glowing plankton, the beginning of her interest in marine biology.

Ever since seeing bioluminescent plankton glowing in the sand at the beach, Deeya has had a passion for marine biology and ocean conservation. To support this interest, she often drives down to work at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

“Working there has really opened my eyes to how much is going on in the ocean,” Deeya said. “I can tell that everybody there cares about the ocean and everybody’s super interested in all the fishes and animals at the aquarium, and it’s made me more aware of how ocean conservation affects all of us.”

With plans to pursue marine biology in the future, Deeya works on social media, video editing and website creation at her current job to spread awareness about marine life. Her interest in the ocean, kayaking, hiking and general activities in nature spurred her to continue contributing to ocean conservation.

“If we don’t care about global warming and pollution, then a lot of these cool animals that we see at the bottom of the sea that we’re still discovering probably won’t be there in the next few hundred years,” Deeya said. “The ocean is something that we haven’t explored much and we could learn so much from it. If we’re throwing it away, then we’re throwing away so much knowledge.” 

Deeya carries her commitment to her interests over into her work as the Executive President of the Robotics Team. She first joined in frosh year with no prior coding experience but quickly found her place. After taking a few coding classes at Harker, Deeya started working more actively with the team on building robots and competing.

“I’ve made so many friends through robotics, and seeing robots perform at competitions while working with other teams has been rewarding for me,” Deeya said. “Learning programming was definitely hard because the learning curve is very difficult, but eventually, I was able to develop some skills in order for me to learn more programming languages.” 

Close friend and fellow robotics team member Tiffany Gu (’25) commends Deeya’s strong personality and willingness to speak up. Tiffany first met Deeya the summer before their frosh year at a robotics summer camp, where she instantly noticed Deeya’s outgoing and sociable personality.

“I’ve learned a lot from her where she’s not afraid to use her voice to speak up when something is wrong or when she thinks she can use it to do something powerful with it,” Tiffany said. “It’s mostly when standing up for newer members, like when she sees they have a concern or they want something to change in the team, she will listen to them and then she will bring that up with the larger leadership board.”

Computer Science Department head Eric Nelson, who has mentored Deeya since frosh year through the robotics program, notes the easygoing, positive attitude that she brings to all the meetings.

“Deeya has been so heavily and actively engaged with the robotics program this year,” Dr. Nelson said. “She has done an excellent job of communicating and promulgating information to the people on the team, and knowing where what’s happening and then making sure that the folks know what’s happening. Attention to detail is another thing she’s good at, very few things are going to fall through the cracks if she’s paying attention to whatever it is she’s working on.”

Deeya and the rest of the robotics team recently developed an open source AI application that analyzes data for smaller teams that lack the resources or members to gather data from larger competitions. Robotics Technical president Atharv Goyal (’25) admires Deeya’s care for others shown through her collaborative work. 

“Deeya is really outgoing and friendly, and I work with her on a lot of different things to help our robotics team make sure everything is running smoothly,” Atharv said. “Something very special in her that you don’t see frequently in the world is sincerity. Deeya is such a genuine person that she actually enjoys the stuff she does and she really believes the stuff that she says.”

One of Deeya’s favorite memories from robotics is the team winning the Impact Award in 2023 after being fifth overall in the Sacramento regionals and competing in the World Championships. She values the strong sense of companionship she felt in the moment with the team, and desires to continue that in the future.

“I’m inspired by other teams by seeing how they work, and seeing how they got to where they are,” Deeya said. “I want to be at that level for our own team. I want our robotics team to keep working hard. I hope I have been able to inspire more collaboration on our team.”