Taking on challenges and barriers is something Cadence Daniels knows quite well. Her mother emigrated from Kenya in the 1980s, and after returning to school she worked her way up at Target to lead their diversity and inclusion initiatives. “We are a family who likes challenges, particularly when the odds seem against us,” Daniels said.
Before Cadence Daniels started as an Integrated Digital Media student in 2014, it was clear she was bound for success. While still in high school she took advantage of a dual-enrollment program offered in Minnesota, where she and her family were living at the time, that allowed her to earn her high school diploma and simultaneously take college-level courses. Her advanced training made her a perfect candidate for NYU Tandon, and while she initially enrolled as a computer engineering major in her first year here, her discovery of the Integrated Digital Media program changed her path.
During her time at NYU Tandon, Daniels has shown immense dedication to ensuring inclusivity in engineering, in both her academic and extracurricular interests, such as her IDM concentration in Interaction Design and Ethics in Engineering. As president of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), she works towards increasing representation of black students within all majors at NYU Tandon and supporting NSBE members in their academic development.
During her time at Tandon, she also had a chance visit to NYU’s Leslie eLab which led to an internship at NYU’s Entrepreneurial Institute. Seeing all of the available resources available for students, Daniels co-founded the Women of Entrepreneurship group, NYU’s first campus-wide organization that aims to help advance and support women entrepreneurs across the NYU community. She even served as creative director for the 2016 and 2017 NYU Entrepreneurs Festival.
Her contributions have received immense praise from figures like Dean of Student Affairs Anita Farrington and Executive Director of the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute Frank Rimalovski, and in 2018 she received the Women in STEM Summit Award. The first student to receive the Summit Award, she shared her hope for greater inclusivity and opportunities for students in engineering, design, and science at NYU Tandon and beyond. “While there is no statistical reason for why I was here [at NYU Tandon], I bring something to the table that no one else can. There is a lot of power in diversity and difference, and it goes beyond what I look like or where I came from. It’s the way I think and the way I live,” she said.
