Those who know Navina Abbi are well aware of her achievements as president of the Enloe engineering club, her passion for physics with Dr. Culbreth, and her love of baking, hanging out with friends, and more outside of school. With a research paper written in collaboration with a UNC professor and a life goal of becoming “walking google,”there’s no doubt that Navina is the embodiment of an academic weapon. However, that’s not to say she doesn’t have a silly side of her own with her hilarious baking experiences and clumsiness.
Navina’s educational career is an impressive one, and she says that she “will miss the communal trauma” of Enloe. Her time with the engineering club perhaps had the greatest impact on her. “When I started the club in sophomore year, it was a really small, quaint little club… but I really enjoyed the projects we did,” Navina says. Since being promoted in junior year, she is now the proud president of the group and has broadened it out to more people. Navina says her main goal is for the club to have more of a reach on the female population of Enloe and make it an alternative to other STEM clubs where she felt it was harder for women to be represented due to the clubs’ male majorities. She also stresses that engineering club is meant for those that like engineering to let loose, be creative and have fun with the club rather than be pressured with competitions so characteristic of clubs like Science Olympiad. In addition to her accomplishments in school, Navina has participated in some amazing internships. One internship she highlighted was at the computer science department at UNC Chapel Hill. She had the opportunity to write and publish a paper on generative AI software (for example, AI art software) with a computer science professor, Dr. Arcot Rajasekar. She highlights how cool it was to find out how the software works, how to make her own, and the ethics of it.
As the senior voted most likely to fall down the stairs, it is no surprise that Navina’s life outside of academics is full of fun and surprises. Navina adores baking, especially with friends, saying that “[she’s] not usually a baker, but everytime [her and her friends] hangout, the first thing [they] do is bake– for some reason.” Navina and her team of friends’ baked goods are consistently (or perhaps inconsistently) characterized by first being satisfactory, then the next being disappointing, then the third being once again satisfactory and so on. No future cake will top the beautiful orange cake Navina’s team made for their AP Lang class, especially since the next cake she baked crumbled and failed to maintain architectural integrity.
Outside of baking, Navina also has a passion for art and the creative outlet it provides. She believes that art has even helped her engineering endeavors even though many believe that a hardcore STEM subject like engineering is entirely analytical and mathematical. Art has caused Navina to consider going into architecture rather than just engineering in college in order to keep that creativeness art brings to her. “I still want to have that creative aspect of it where I get to make something that is purely me and creative,” Navina points out, “I really enjoy painting and drawing […] it’s really a safe space for me.”
Navina is also sure to keep in constant touch with her culture through Sanskaar, a Hindu academy for grade school kids. Sanskaar has played an integral role in shaping her values and moral compass. While she enjoys the mythology and other religious lessons from Sanskaar, she believes that the moral lessons are what she’ll take on forever in her life. Through assistance teaching, Sanskaar has also contributed to her sense of community. “I really enjoy talking to the kids about what the high school experience is like and what they should look out for and how they should carry themselves,” says Navina. When talking about her own class, she highlights that those who she’s grown up alongside are extremely important to her. She thoroughly enjoys sitting in a literal circle,“basically [having] group therapy” during class time and says that it has really contributed to the feeling of community with her Sanskaar peers.
Engineering-baking-Sanskaar extraordinaire, Navina Abbi, is truly a role model for many eagle scholars. As our delegate future engineer, we wish you the best of luck in whatever life may throw at you in the years to come!
