Roaa Marei, EDI '27Consulting, Design Engineering, Integrated Product Service Systems, Tech, UI/UX
About
Roaa is a systems thinker and engineer who brings together software, hardware, and human-centered design to create meaningful technologies. With a strong background in mechanical engineering and a secondary in social anthropology from Harvard, she blends technical expertise with cultural awareness to approach design as both a problem-solving and storytelling process.
Roaa worked in the aerospace industry at Woodward as a sensors engineer, where she developed technologies critical to flight systems. Her broad interests also led her to co-invent SpiroSniff, a patent-pending, AI-powered breathalyzer for early lung cancer detection. Her work reflects a deep commitment to health equity, aerospace, technological innovation, and interdisciplinary collaboration. Roaa believes that effective innovation must center people, their environments, cultures, and constraints, and that thoughtful engineering starts with asking the right questions.
Portfolio
Why EDI?
Roaa was drawn to EDI’s emphasis on human-centered design and interdisciplinary collaboration because she believes that the most impactful technologies are those that are not only intelligent but also empathetic and context-aware. She sees EDI as a space where she can grow not only as an engineer but as a tech entrepreneur and consultant, capable of leading innovation at the intersection of emerging technology, health equity, and systems design. For her, engineering is not just about solving problems, but about understanding the people those solutions serve.
Through the EDI program, Roaa hopes to deepen her ability to integrate software and machine learning into user-centered systems that address real-world challenges in healthcare, aerospace, and beyond. Roaa has consistently combined technical rigor with social purpose, and her interdisciplinary approach is rooted in mechanical engineering and anthropology, which shaped how she sees the relationship between design, culture, and access.
Experience before EDI
B.S. in Mechanical Engineering with a Secondary (minor) in Social Anthropology at Harvard University
Sensors Engineer, Woodward, Inc. (Aerospace Manufacturing Company)
Co-Inventor in the patent-pending leading device: SpiroSniff, an AI-driven Breathalyzer for Early Lung Cancer Detection
Undergraduate Research Intern, Harvard Aizenberg Lab- Bioinspired engineering research group
Mechanical Engineer Intern, Woodward, Inc. - Autopilot Actuators & Sensor Systems for Flight Deck Applications.
Personal Interests
Outside of engineering, Roaa is passionate about mentorship and youth empowerment. She leads international youth leadership conferences in the Middle East, guiding students to develop social impact projects that tackle real-world issues in their communities. She also enjoys drawing, painting, and playing tennis and badminton, and once represented her high school at the Illinois State Championship after a nine-year team drought. Roaa’s creativity extends beyond the lab, she believes that curiosity, play, and art are essential to the innovation process.
