While some may talk about “finding your voice,” for me it’s more about learning to listen to all sorts of voices, at different timbres and volumes, and with varying degrees of confidence. Sometimes these voices are musical—like those I’d sing with at the senior centers I perform for, perhaps trembling with stage fright but smoothening out when the song spoke through. Other times, those voices are urgent and sharp—my own, calling over the loud rush of slides and splash of oars, summoning synchronicity as we’d push through the final 200m in the race. There are voices finding the courage to speak up in a robotics lab as the first girl to lead the programming team—coaxing the same courage out of others and building, bit by bit, a community of supportive females in robotics. And still there are others, digging for half-remembered Mandarin, reminding me that communication is as much about intent as it is fluency or eloquence

Music was my first introduction to listening for those voices. As someone who always adored composing and singing, but was too shy to share, finally performing for the loveliest audience I could have hoped for was my magnum opus: Four retirement homes, 1,372 senior residents, and more Motown than one should hear in their lifetime. The weekends I strayed from my usual repertoire, I’d share the distillations of my shower thoughts and life experiences in song form. In exchange, I earned a ticket to a senior’s recollection of a lost era and learned wisdom, my favorite being, “Don’t rush out of there. Life is better slow.” What mattered most in those afternoons was not being in tune, but being in sync—listening even more passionately than I sang.

On the river, in the early morning haze, I kept learning how to hear and be heard. Being a coxswain meant steering the bow and making the calls, but also tuning into my rowers. At the first occurrence of their oars dipping too low, or the first sign of boat check against my back, I countered with a focus 10 or a shout-out to a rower. In searching for these signals of when to push, when to praise, and when to drop the hammer, I discovered the true meaning of leadership. An effective leader attunes themselves to their peers’ strengths and weaknesses, and uses them to orchestrate collective action. Our victories in the boat, large or small, were the result of teammates who felt seen and supported. The race is won, yes, but so is someone’s belief in themselves.

Robotics felt admittedly different but still familiar. Here, I was both an outsider—the first female head of programming in years— and architect of belonging. Amongst the whir of sawdust vacuums and clacking of keys, I realized how much power there is in welcoming someone in, especially those struggling with belonging. Listening for those voices, I invited Girls Who Code to collaborate with the robotics team, and hosted STEAM days at local elementary schools. I found that inclusion, like much of the code I wrote, is iterative. It required multiple people and multiple moments of reaching out to be sustainable.

Perhaps it's no accident that my understanding of inclusion deepened as I grappled with language at home. Family parties meant circling conversations in Mandarin or Spanish, my American accent always threatening to betray my limits. But my cousins in Bolivia never seemed to care. We communicated with our hands, our faces, and sometimes Google Translate, with laughter that bypassed vocabulary. They made it click that being “inside” a culture isn’t some linguistic accomplishment, only a willingness to belong. Adopting that mindset was the reason my pursuit of Spanish showed results, and became something I thoroughly enjoyed. It let me speak up in rooms of fluent voices with an appetite for growth, despite not mastering every nuance of language.

So if you ask what my hobbies are, you’d find they span a wide range of interests. But what unites all of my roles and passions is this commitment: I will always tune in to what others share with me, and broadcast my own signal honestly. I will always be willing to risk embarrassment for the reward of a deeper connection. And I will always be listening for the next note, the next conversation, and the next challenge

Tuning In

by Eva Rios