{"id":12113,"date":"2025-02-12T15:44:27","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T15:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.golive.clarku.edu\/news\/2025\/02\/12\/from-ai-to-embroidery\/"},"modified":"2025-05-21T11:43:32","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T15:43:32","slug":"from-a-i-to-embroidery","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2025\/02\/12\/from-a-i-to-embroidery\/","title":{"rendered":"From AI to embroidery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

Isaac Tomeho \u201926 shines in both the digital and tactile worlds<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a high school student deciding where to attend college, Isaac Tomeho \u201926 found himself attracted to the words appearing on the Clark University seal: Fiat Lux. The idea of being drawn to the light helped draw him to the campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\u00a0computer science<\/a>\u00a0major has since found a path that allows him to indulge his intellectual passions, begin fulfilling a personal plan for his life and career, and enjoy the opportunity to do something truly unexpected: help his fellow students make really cool stuff. More on that shortly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A self-described \u201cglobal citizen,\u201d Tomeho is a native of the West African country of Benin who also lived in Ghana, Mali, and Senegal before moving to Massachusetts in 2020 to be with his father. By eighth grade, he\u2019d become so fascinated by computer technology that he already knew it was something he\u2019d study at a higher level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you want to be successful, why not go into a field that you\u2019ve enjoyed since you were a kid \u2014 and you\u2019ll keep that passion forever,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Initially founded to take students to hackathons, the Clark Competitive Computing Club focuses on project-based community-building to connect computer science, data science, and game design majors to the broader campus community.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

At Clark, Tomeho has worked with Professor John Magee, now provost, to shape technologies that better serve people with significant physical challenges. He also has collaborated with Professor Odebile Olufemi on ways to shrink the necessary storage capacity for large data files by working with specific algorithms. His research into how video-sharing platforms affected social service organizations pre- and post-COVID earned him an invitation to the 2024 Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) International Conference in Washington, D.C. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tomeho has served on the Clark Undergraduate Student Council and the Black Student Union, and is an active member of the Men of Color Alliance<\/a> on campus. Academically, he serves as a teaching assistant for an Intro to Computing course and relishes his role as a mentor to students finding their way through the rigorous computer science curriculum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cSuccess is an iterative process; and you can\u2019t have success without breaking a few things along the way.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Artificial intelligence doesn\u2019t intimidate him, and that\u2019s because he\u2019s a firm believer in the ability of humans to employ the critical and creative thinking necessary to harness the capacities of AI tools without being overwhelmed by them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m excited about is tech companies hiring physicists, psychologists, and professionals in the humanities to look at their models and determine if they\u2019re ethically aligned and serving the people,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tomeho, to his marrow, is a devoted coder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI love to think really hard about a problem, then write the code that will efficiently solve it,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After graduation, he plans to work as a software engineer for about seven years, develop and refine his expertise, and then ultimately launch his own company \u2014 one \u201cthat will positively impact the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How so?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know for sure quite yet,\u201d he acknowledges. \u201cBut my goal is to make a tech company that is much more about the humanitarian than it is about the technical.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last summer, and with Magee\u2019s support, the potential for merging the digital with the tactile inspired Tomeho, alongside Audrey Roller \u201925 and Abbi Luetjen \u201927, to co-found the Lux Lab<\/a>, a makerspace located in the Center for Media Arts, Computing, and Design. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lab features five 3D printers, a vinyl cutting machine, and a robotic drawing machine called the \u201cMakelangelo<\/a>,\u201d along with other old- and new-school creative tools and technologies \u2014 from four sewing machines and a soldering station to an embroidery machine and a desktop computer equipped with the full Adobe Creative Suite.          <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWe actually built the printers from scratch ourselves,\u201d Tomeho recalls with a grin. \u201cThey arrived in pieces, and we watched movies and listened to music during the summer while making them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tomeho and his partners have trained Clark students in the use of the machines to craft everything from a robotic hand (Tomeho\u2019s original creation) to stickers, pouches for phones and batteries, embroidered patches, and all sorts of personalized items (the Clark logo is a popular design element for many products). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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