By Jessie Ying



“The arts and sciences are fields that are deeply rooted in exploration, play and curiosity,” she explained.She admitted that before coming to MEng, she feared that her art practice would need to come second to her engineering studies. However, through her Capstone experience and other classes, she found new ways in which her passion for the arts and her background in technical studies could feed into one another. She would often turn her engineering class presentations into performance art projects that reimagined the rigid schema of tech presentations. Luna strongly believes in the importance of diversity in the engineering labor force. For her, this not only means bringing a cross-discipline perspective to her engineering projects, but also to voice her opinion as a woman in a male-dominated field. She co-led FemTech Make Robotics, a workshop series designed to introduce groups traditionally underrepresented in engineering to technology and maker spaces.
“It was very important to me that the engineering mindset be constantly pushed to understand and incorporate perspectives from different genders, races, and backgrounds,” she said.She worked hard to create a more inclusive environment within engineering, and admired the professors and classes that aimed to do the same. “I admired the Professors in the MEng Bootcamp that would use feminine pronouns to refer to example company executives, constantly reminding students of the importance and prevalence of women’s presence in the technology workforce. It’s these kinds of values, not necessarily the technical skills, that students should hold on to from Fung Engineering.” Going forward, Luna hopes to pursue a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree and build her own career in art practice. Aside from her work with CEVA, she continues to develop her own performance and mixed media art. She recently performed a piece at the Caravaglia Gallery in New York that her and fellow UC Berkeley student Christian Nagler created in response to an online persona, Cami, that they originally designed for one of her MEng classes.



Luna Izpisua Rodriguez: Bridging engineering and arts was originally published in Berkeley Master of Engineering on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.