arusha sahai

arusha sahai

I am a sophomore at Stanford University (Class of 2027) majoring in design on the "AI + Digital User Experience" track and minoring in music. In High School, I studied higher level mathematics, physics, design technology, and english literature. My passion for design came about in 6th grade, when I attended my first 'design technology' class. Since then, I have been involved in various design experiences and organizations on Stanford’s campus.

B.S. Candidate - Design - School of Engineering
​Minor Candidate - Music - School of Humanities and Sciences

I am from singapore

I took decorating my freshman dorm pretty seriously

I was on the core team that led Stanford’s first-ever designathon

I am a musician

my first design project was a pinewood derby racecar (not to brag but I had the fastest car in sixth grade)

Stanford Women in Design

Stanford Women in Design

Design Kids

Design Kids

Alpha Phi

Alpha Phi

some things I’ve designed…

Freshtrack

digital design • figma • ui/ux

Freshtrack is a mobile app UI I designed in Figma for “Design 11: Visual Thinking” at Stanford to address the everyday challenge of managing shared refrigerators. Whether it's forgotten leftovers, confusing ownership, or juggling dietary needs, fridge organization can get chaotic fast. Freshtrack helps users track expiration dates, monitor fridge capacity shelf-by-shelf, assign items to specific people, and view nutrition info—all within a clean, intuitive interface. The app features a homepage with options to log in, explore the app, or access contact details, and offers a guided experience for both new and returning users. Designed to replicate the logic and flow of a real-world product, this project received a 98/100 and deepened my understanding of user empathy, systems thinking, and interface design.

Escape Room

interaction design • storytelling • team

Podcast: Branding and Therabody

media • research

For this project, as part of "Design 1: Introduction to Design" at Stanford, I co-designed an interactive escape room inspired by the Netflix show You. Our team developed a 12-minute immersive thriller where players take on the role of Beck (his victim), solving collaborative puzzles to evade a stalker. We iterated through low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes, conducted user testing, and refined puzzle flow to balance complexity, narrative cohesion, and teamwork. This project sharpened my skills in creative storytelling, prototyping, and interactive experience design.

Phone Safe

physical design • end-to-end process

I created this project as part of my IGCSE coursework in High School. To create this piece of work, I spent two years in the design process and gained a thorough understanding of design thinking. These were the main aspects of the process that I documented: gaining info on my client, the design problem and situation, client needs/wants/requirements/specifications, the design opportunities, the target market, researching other products in the market, collecting data, interviewing my client, researching design specifications, exploring design ideas, conducting a client interview upon ideas, developing shape/form/material/finishing/joining methods/construction methods/UI, circuit selection, production planning, presentation drawings (Fusion 360), orthographic drawings (Fusion 360), cutting list, documenting the production process, making modifications, product realisation, testing and evaluation against design specification, and proposal for future developments.

As part of "Design 101: History and Ethics of Design", my group and I created a podcast episode called Behind The Brand where we ventured deep into the history and evolution of branding. To gain an expert voice on the topic,  we interviewed Benjamin Nazarian, co-founder, former CEO, and current Executive Chairman of Therabody, the wellness technology company behind Theragun. Listen to his insights on branding and how it shaped Therabody to be the successful wellness brand it is today.

Self-Composting Toilet

physical design • social impact

I designed a self-composting toilet system to address the urgent issues of mismanaged sewage and unaffordable fertilizer in the Steung Meanchey Landfills of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. After months of research, CAD modeling, prototyping, and iterative testing, I developed a final design. To implement it locally, I contacted several NGOs and partnered with the I Love Cambodia Project, an educational charity, whose founder brought me to a village in need. With support from local carpenters, we built a toilet shed housing three self-composting toilets with solar-powered lighting. Compost bins replaced septic tanks, and nutrient-rich fertilizer replaced waste runoff. When the project was completed, all seventy-one families gathered to celebrate — the toilets had become a source of pride for the entire community.

United Worldwide

digital design • web design • ui/ux

United Worldwide is a global online magazine I co-founded to connect the 18 United World Colleges through shared stories and diverse perspectives. I led the full design and development of the website, unitedworldwide.co, which now hosts over 1,000 articles from a team of more than 300 contributors. I focused on creating a clear and intuitive platform that highlights student voices while maintaining a cohesive user experience. This project brought together my passions for design, writing, and community, and showed me the power of thoughtful digital spaces.