Most teenagers pick a lane. Wanruo Wang refuses to. A junior, she is simultaneously the co-founder and CEO of AEGIS — a startup developing a smart mat that detects metallic hazards embedded in car tires before pressure ever drops — and a nationally recognized visual artist whose work on identity and the pressures placed on young women has earned a 2026 National YoungArts Award, a Scholastic National Silver Medal, and five Bay Area Gold Keys. The startup grew from a real scare (her mother's tires picked up screws twice in two months, with no warning) into three provisional patents and recognition from MIT THINK and the Conrad Challenge. What unites the art and the engineering is a single instinct she calls "paying attention": noticing something ordinary, asking why it works the way it does, and building something better. The result is a rare young creator equally fluent in circuit design and color theory.
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