Hello, I'm Rae.

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Hey, nice to meet you! I go by Rae or Rachel (either one works, truly), and I am an under(tale)graduate Honors Dean's List student at Northeastern majoring in Combined Computer Science & Music with a Concentration in Music Technology.

One of the primary reasons I chose this path is for the intersections between art and technology, particularly for video games. I figured that video games need programming & they need music; what better major to pursue? I'm also focused on the overall creative applications of programming and software in general, outside of gaming.

There are a couple of initial factors that have led me to being where I am now. First, all the way back in middle school, I realized that computer science had creative power, power that could send very strong messages. 14-yr old me was making simple JavaScript Choose-Your-Path games using browser pop-ups, to advocate against animal cruelty. Second, some of my earliest memories I can recall revolve around video games. I remember sitting in our old house's dusty basement and watching my dad strike the final blow into Ganondorf's chest in Twilight Princess. I remember my sisters and I waking up early in the morning just to play Minecraft together. I remember always being on this spelling and typing game that I could not stop playing, ending up with me now with my accidental peak typing speed of 144 WPM (according to monkeytype.com). Third, the only times in my childhood when I felt like I was freely flying were when I was either listening to any Legend of Zelda or other video game OST --- or playing them on the piano.

This is all to say that this is partially why I'm in the gaming industry, and why I chose to pursue this major, since it gives me experience with multiple sectors of what a video game needs.

In terms of music, I also have an extensive background spanning 15 years in music theory and piano training. My encompassing early training, combined with one of my earliest languages being tonal (Mandarin Chinese) and potentially some genetics, has led to the development of me possessing absolute pitch (or, in colloquial terms, "perfect pitch", though it's actually far from a "perfect" skill in any individual).

Currently, I'm getting some of my first professional game development experience with UPG LLC as an Interactive Game Developer & Designer, developing an educational caverunner game on board with Palura Games (a new startup!), and serving as a Project Lead for Scout Northeastern, working with the band Good Karma. I'm also taking the course Music & Audio for Video Games with acclaimed video game composer Chel Wong!

Previously, I had the opportunity to intern at Black Soup GmbH in Berlin as a Software Engineering & Marketing Co-Op/Intern, where I gained hands-on experience in video game marketing, influencer outreach, media planning, and campaign execution. I led 4 organic marketing campaigns for video game titles (Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, Memoriapolis, Palia, Rooftops & Alleys), executing influencer outreach and digital strategy that collectively garnered over 5M impressions and 250K engagements across social platforms. Furthermore, I acted as a primary point of contact for clients (KRAFTON, Radical Theory, Riot Games, Singularity 6). A very fun part of the job involved managing and coordinating with content creators to facilitate content creation, and I directly contributed to driving over 1M combined views on campaign-related content. I also engineered Google Apps Scripts to automate media planning and reporting, and contributed to designing a centralized campaign database. One of my favorite parts involved getting to know the incredible creators of the game PEPPERED --- Vas & Nat. I got to proofread some of the script for the game, and seeing their love and drive for the project was genuinely so incredibly inspiring, and made me learn even more about what it really takes to put out a great game. Go check PEPPERED out on Steam!

I'm also delving deeper into my interest in building practical, user-centric software and taking full ownership of projects from concept through deployment. Developing web applications or software tools that enable people to improve their lives or their impact on the planet is something that got me into computer science initially. You can see an example of this in my Garment Genie browser extension, NUCircle, and more, found on this website's portfolio page.

For now, I'm actively seeking more hands-on video game music composition or sound design experience, and I've become increasingly interested in developing/engineering audio software like Wwise or FMOD.

Thanks for visiting my website. Feel free to reach out to hear about my projects, experiences, personal take on the ever-so-complicated Legend of Zelda timeline, or to test my absolute pitch capacity. Let me know if you find the hidden treasure on this site! (Though it's inaccessible on mobile devices --- for now.)