Leaping into the Unknown

At a time when the tech industry changes seemingly day-to-day, perhaps no one is more prepared for possible career pivots and unexpected discoveries than Michael Iwashima ’25.

A talented centerback, Iwashima was scouted as a pre-teen by FC Barcelona and Athlético de Madrid until an ACL injury derailed any hopes of a professional soccer career.

“Mentally, I had been playing soccer for so long at such a high level that I actually had a lot of anxiety, so I felt okay about having to find something new,” he recalls. “And that was around the time I started getting into music and making friends in that world.”

Iwashima spent his high school years recording and producing tracks for local rappers and musicians in the suburbs of Chicago. It was a hobby he truly enjoyed, but he couldn’t see himself pursuing it as a career—he was yearning for something that could offer the same discipline and hard work that soccer had fostered in him.

An answer came to him while watching a YouTube video of someone using a brain computer interface (BCI) to control a video game.

“I decided that if I’m going to do anything with my life, I wanted to do something super cool—and this looked super cool,” jokes Iwashima, who decided to put the same competitive mindset he gained from soccer into his academics and study engineering.

But what field would he want to specialize in? With dozens of new engineering sub-fields in machine learning and bioengineering emerging each year, choosing one interest over another felt impossible—the FOMO was real. But Iwashima’s mom had a saying: “Don’t close any doors.”

So, with a world of options open to him, it was at Â鶹ŮÀÉ that Iwashima found the space, opportunities, and mentorship to freely explore a wide range of skills and discover his full potential.

Science at the cutting edge

“Going into a field that’s still being developed can be a really uncomfortable feeling,” Iwashima says. “It takes a different mindset than what’s taught in the traditional classroom where you’re given a syllabus of what to expect, and I feel like that was a really important thing that I learned at Santa Clara.”

With its small classes, teacher-scholar model, and emphasis on undergraduate research, the ability for Iwashima to build working relationships with professors—especially ones doing “cool,” innovative work—was a huge benefit.

One of his biggest mentors in this area was associate professor of bioengineering Jonathan Zhang. He originally met Zhang as a prospective student and was immediately inspired by his “amazing character and spirit.”

Not only did Zhang’s classes give Iwashima a new appreciation for science, but as a researcher in Zhang’s lab, Iwashima was exposed to new biomedical applications of AI. In the face of increasing antibiotic-resistant bacteria, Zhang and his team were using AI to develop new molecules, like proteins, that might be able to prevent bacterial infection.

Unlimited potential, constant discoveries, huge ethical questions—it seemed like AI was the perfect undiscovered country for Iwashima. And while there were no current student clubs where he could learn more about the field, Iwashima was ready to forge his own path. Thus, was born.

“It was an experiment in and of itself,” he says. “Really, the focus for me was developing a community of passionate people who wanted to learn about AI together.”

Since he founded the group in his freshman year, the club hosts weekly AI build sessions, sends members to , and organized the hugely successful AI Summit at SCU with tech leaders from Tesla, OpenAI, Adobe, Nvidia, and more.

But, Iwashima’s favorite AI Collaborate experiences were its quarterly AI ethics debates led by Sahana Kumar ’26.

“That was the most beneficial thing about AI Collaborate—getting to know so many different types of people and perspectives. If I were a typical engineering student, I would just know my friends who go to the same classes, but through this, I’ve met students in the business school and sciences, too. Having that kind of community and network, especially later in life, is so powerful.”

Food for thought

After getting wider exposure to the AI industry through AI Collaborate, his senior project returned to his bioengineering roots to explore AI-driven solutions for large-scale agriculture.  

“With an increasing population, of course, you need to increase food production. But with the stress of climate change, the amount of land that can be used for farming is going down. So, with the increased urgency and need for food, I think this is a great example of how improved technology could help.”

Partnering with researchers at the Vienna University of Technology, Iwashima designed a biosensor that could help farmers identify pathogens threatening their crops.

“I had noticed that a lot of agricultural technology was not super advanced. We interviewed some farmers who’d just walk around and visually inspect their crops for disease, which isn’t the most efficient,” Iwashima explains. “Meanwhile, Vienna University had already developed a cutting-edge aptamer, which was perfect for our device. You can think of our project like installing a webcam on a computer. They made a webcam, and we’re making the computer.”

The final device starts with an aptamer-based bio probe. An aptamer is a synthetic molecule of DNA or RNA designed specifically bind with certain molecules or DNA—in this case, the Aspergillus niger spore which creates black mold on crops. Then, Iwashima’s sensor uses a micro quartz crystal chip to measure changes in weight, signaling the presence of Aspergillus spores that have bonded with the aptamer.

Through the epic highs and lows of troubleshooting the successful project, Iwashima has become even more excited about the project’s potential application across the food industry, like in meat processing facilities and quality testing. With wider real-world applications comes more data, and with that, increased opportunities to use AI to drive solutions, Iwashima adds.

After graduation, he’s following this academic appetite to Purdue University, where he was accepted as a Ph.D. candidate in their nationally-ranked agriculture engineering program—a door he’s eager to go through thanks to his exploration and growth at SCU.

“Coming to Santa Clara, thankfully, I’ve been really surrounded with people that have challenged me to be my best self and follow my creative drive, but they have also valued things like character and integrity, which is so important.”