Larry Jin

Global Challenge: Inequality

Larry Jin is a sophomore at NYU Tandon School of Engineering pursuing a degree in Mechanical Engineering. From a young age, Larry had two competing interests: dissecting the mechanisms around him to understand how they worked, and deconstructing the phrases in poetry and writing to uncover the creativity and expression within — yes, at one point he seriously considered pursuing journalism. His path began to lean toward engineering when he got his hands on an Arduino and started automating everyday tasks around the house, quickly realizing that engineering was the one domain where his technical and creative sides didn't have to compete. Originally from Vancouver, Canada, Larry grew up immersed in a richly diverse community of cultures and languages.

That upbringing instilled in him a genuine appreciation for different perspectives, and his move to New York City was a natural extension of that — a chance to engage with one of the most global cities in the world and continue learning from the people he meets along the way. In his free time, you'll find Larry roaming the city with friends in search of increasingly niche photo spots, expanding his palate (and his Beli) one food spot at a time, and attempting to organize everything from his room to his music playlists to his life.

At NYU Tandon, Larry has been an active member of the NYU Ultraviolet Vertically Integrated Project (VIP), where he has gained hands-on experience designing components within a collaborative team environment. This experience has sharpened his ability to think about how individual contributions fit into a larger, interconnected system. He is also a member of Theta Tau, a professional engineering fraternity where he has found value in professional mentorship in addition to a tight-knit community. Looking ahead, Larry hopes to join a robotics startup focused on accessibility. In the long run, he hopes to look back on a career defined by having made the world more inclusive and accommodating for everyone.

Larry applied to the GLASS program because he saw it as an opportunity to direct his passion for engineering and robotics toward something larger than himself. The shift in perspective came during his senior year of high school, when Larry volunteered at a local food bank. His experience volunteering showed him that societal problems are rarely as simple as they appear, and neither are their solutions. In Vancouver, he observed that food insecurity wasn't primarily a problem of food scarcity — it was a problem of accessibility. People with dependencies at home, unexpected health challenges, or disabilities were often unable to work enough, and that limitation cascaded into insecurity in every other area of their lives.

The real solution, he realized, wasn't more food — it was removing the barriers that prevented people from accessing opportunity in the first place. Since his experience volunteering, Larry hopes to develop robotic and assistive technologies that directly address the accessibility gap to give people back their independence and, with it, their stability. Through GLASS, Larry looks forward to expanding this perspective globally, exploring how accessibility challenges manifest differently across cultures and communities, and connecting with the people and opportunities that will help him turn that vision into reality.