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For me, it was a little different because I am originally from Brazil. That's where I got my undergraduate degree. In Brazil, you have to enter college with a specific degree in mind. When I turned eighteen, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do. I was deciding between civil engineering, architecture, and business administration. My brother is three years older than I am and was studying engineering. He said, “It will be hard for me to deal with you as an engineer. You should study architecture." So I started architecture. Then I decided to take business as a second degree. So I was taking architecture during the day and business at night. I did that for three years until I decided to continue only in architecture. So I was forced to make a choice. I really didn't know if it was the right one, and it turned out that I sort of changed my career afterwards.

When I was in architecture school, I had a job as a trainee. In Brazil, we go to school in the morning. You may have classes in the evening, but normally the afternoon is free. I worked at a large construction company for half the day. When I graduated, they offered me a job. So I went straight from college to working as a full-time architect in that company. They actually hired architects from outside to design buildings, and I was the in-house architect, making sure the design was done appropriately and had all the necessary approvals. I did that for almost five years.

We have a joke here at the Lighting Research Center (LRC) that everybody who works here ended up in lighting by accident. They happened to have an opportunity that drove them to a job related to lighting, and they continued along that path. That's one of the reasons I was interested in talking to you. We always say that we wish high school counselors would suggest lighting as a career because so few people think about lighting that way.

In my case, I was married at the time, and my ex-husband came to RPI for an M.B.A. degree. As an architect, I wanted to get a master's degree to complete my education. I never thought of lighting until I got here and saw the LRC, which is part of the School of Architecture. I thought, “Wow, that sounds interesting.” I interviewed here, and they accepted me. I started the course work and fell in love with it. I kept taking courses and liking it more and more. My husband went back to Brazil, and I ended up staying in the United States. I earned my master's of science in lighting through the LRC. Then I earned my Ph.D. in multidisciplinary science while I was working at the LRC.