Ruhani Chhabra

I've been writing essentially my whole life, since I became literate as a kid. Growing up in the Bay Area's STEM-dominated atmosphere, I knew early on that wasn't my path, so I focused on developing my artistic talent through writing workshops and school clubs. My breakthrough came in high school when I won first place out of 11,000 submissions for a New York Times essay contest as a junior. That piece, about a racial profiling incident my father experienced, resonated with so many people and confirmed storytelling was my calling. I've built a social media following of around 15,000 where I share my poetry. Now as a UC Berkeley English major and creative writing minor, I work as a media and communications intern at the largest biotech incubator in the country. I run their Instagram and LinkedIn, write long-form articles highlighting tenant companies, interview founders, and translate complex scientific concepts into digestible information for patients and the general public. I'm passionate about finding the human element within science and technology. My work has been published in the Berkeley Fiction Review and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. I've also won 7 or 8 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. I teach creative writing to second graders through CalCreate and co-run a student-led course at Berkeley on different tropes in literature for 30 college students.