Maya Muir

Maya Muir says she chose to pursue a computer science degree in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering because it “blends perfectly with my love for math,” her other major. Both fields, she says, “follow the same principles of logic and real-world problem solving” and offer opportunities to make a difference in the world.

Muir wasted no time in taking advantage of those opportunities.

“My biggest achievement was putting myself out there my freshman year by getting involved in student organizations,” she says.

Through membership in Arizona State University’s chapter of the Society of Women Engineers, the Fulton Ambassadors, Engineering Projects in Community Service and other organizations, Muir says she “met people and found mentors who helped me throughout my college career.”

She took various leadership roles in those groups and others as the communications director, outreach committee lead, sophomore affairs director, alumni relations officer and project team leader, and also served as an undergraduate teaching assistant and a computer science lead tutor for the Fulton Engineering Tutoring Centers.

As a student in ASU’s Barrett, The Honors College, she studied abroad in Trinidad and Tobago and did two software engineering internships with the Medtronic company.

Muir also earned first- and second-place awards in Devils Invent competitions and participated in the Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative, or FURI, program and the Fulton Schools Grand Challenges Scholars Program.

Muir’s academic achievements have brought support for her undergraduate studies from a Society of Women Engineers Scholarship, the New American University Scholar President’s Award, a Marilyn and James A. Schmidlin New American University Scholarship and a Stanley C. & Helen K. Delpier Scholarship.  

An especially memorable experience was her combined FURI/Honors thesis project on which she worked with Professor Ross Maciejewski and Assistant Professor Ariane Middel to create a web-based decision support system to assist urban city planners in building effective shading structures.

“This was exciting because I was given a lot of responsibility and freedom to complete this project” Muir says. “I learned new software skills and had great mentors to support me throughout the project.”

That opportunity and others have given her the necessary skills to get an internship this summer as a technical program manager with Google. After that, Muir will continue studies in computer science in the Fulton Schools 4+1 accelerated master’s degree program.

She’s hoping the advanced degree and expanding technical and management skills will lead to her return to Google in a full-time position.

Read about other exceptional graduates of the Fulton Schools’ Spring 2022 class here.