BIOGRAPHY
 

                 Ameya Tilaye is an electrical engineer, AI/ML data analyst, and an original artist, sculptor, and designer. Born in Pasadena, California to an architect father, and having a grandmother who was a handicraft artist, she was immersed in creativity from an early age. ​  At just seven years old, she was honored by the mayor of Los Angeles for her award winning art celebrating Asian American Heritage & Culture Month. The following year, she achieved national recognition as the runner-up in Coldwell Banker’s national art contest, selected from 3,600 entries, with her work featured in both the Pasadena Star News and the South Pasadena Review. ​

           

                 Her talents led her to the prestigious Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA), where she explored a wide range of media including painting, graphic design, sculpture, animation, mixed media, and filmmaking. She earned several Golden Key and Silver Key awards from the Scholastic National Art Awards, and her paintings and sculptures were exhibited in esteemed venues such as the LACE Gallery, MutMuz Gallery, HRLA Gallery, and Pico House Gallery in Los Angeles. Not limited to art alone, she was chosen as one of just four students for a summer research program at Caltech under a National Science Foundation grant. There, she investigated photo-responsive materials with potential surgical applications for treating Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. This experience also gave her the chance to learn from a NASA physicist and origami artist Dr.  Lang's innovative work on solar arrays as well as from Elizabeth Berrien, a nationally renowned wire artist. ​  

         

                   Inspired by her multidisciplinary experiences, Ameya pursued higher education at UCLA, where she was  admitted to both the renowned Henry Samueli School of Engineering & Applied Sciences and the School of Art and Architecture for Studio Art. Initially beginning her studies in computer science, her involvement with the acclaimed UCLA Visual Machines Group (VMG) steered her interest toward creating technology products, prompting her shift to Electrical Engineering. As part of the VMG team, she helped present a groundbreaking computer vision demo on thermal non-line of sight imaging at the UCLA ECE Annual Research Review, a presentation that earned the award for Best Undergraduate Demo. She also contributed to a DARPA grant proposal on contactless COVID-19 testing devices and shared her insights on the future of AI from a student’s perspective. In an elective class, she worked with a cross-functional team of engineering students on a hypothetical proposal for SafeLid, a hands-free bottle lock featuring selective password access.  

         

                      Interested in a career combining creativity and technology, Ameya was selected as one of 24 Etsy Summer of Vision Fellows from across the nation. In this role, she collaborated with senior machine learning engineers and data scientists to design a unique e-commerce experience for Etsy customers, focusing on classifying products by nuanced characteristics such as pattern and texture, areas where AI was just beginning to make an impact. ​  

         

                        As the Mentorship Chair for UCLA Women Advancing Technology through Teamwork (WATT), Ameya organized programs that paired undergraduates with successful women alumni from the Samueli School of Engineering and coordinated social events with other women in engineering clubs. Even when faced with a major health crisis during her undergraduate years, her resilience and the support of compassionate faculty enabled her to persevere and complete her education. ​  

           

                       Ameya Tilaye believes that technology and art have the power to transform lives and create a better future. Her mission is to use her expertise to create innovative products and services creating meaningful experiences that bring out the best in people.