SHIRIN EBRAHIMI

Senior Manager, Privacy | Ernst & Young

To whom it may concern:

There is an ever-growing portion of our society whose needs have not been met. When I say this, I don’t just mean financial needs either. Through my work as a Cybersecurity & Privacy Manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers, I have had the pleasure of consulting for and working alongside young titans of industry such as Elon Musk, Evan Spiegel, and Mark Zuckerberg. Though all these men have different backgrounds and differing areas of expertise, there are certain characteristics these modern-day renaissance men all have in common: (1) Intelligence, (2) Thirst for knowledge, and (3) Artistry. 

The term Renaissance man can most aptly be described as a man or woman who is well educated and who excels in a wide variety of subjects. The idea finds its origins in Leon Battista Alberti’s idea that “a man can do all things if he will.” These people tend to feel that they are empowered and limitless in terms of self-realization and self actualization.

In the time that I’ve known Matthew, he’s shown the same kind of raw intelligence that I witness in my most important business meetings with some of the aforementioned names. He’s a deep thinker who possesses an uncanny ability to analyze and synthesize large quantities of information. Similarly, when I met Matthew, it was in a science-based capacity. He had just been nominated by the legendary astronaut, Buzz Aldrin, for the Congress of Future Science and Technology Leaders.  Matthew interned with the Los Angeles SITES (Summer Introduction to Engineering and Sciences) program, which offered him the opportunity to work for companies city-wide as an assistant to professional engineers and scientists. After competing against several hundred applicants from around the city, Mr. Nelson was placed at the Los Angeles Glendale Water Reclamation Plant. While working there, he blew away his mentors with his innovative ideas on desalination and the use of micro-organisms from the water reclamation process to dispose of the residual waste. It’s ideas such as these that set Matthew apart from his peers. His out-of-the-box approach help him see things that others don’t. I experienced this firsthand while working on a creative project with Matthew earlier this month.  

To my surprise, Mr. Nelson is also an accomplished visual artist, singer, and actor. After being cast as the lead in both his school’s play and the short music narrative “If I Could (Killing Superman)”, I learned that Matthew is as passionate about acting as he is about science. A voracious reader, he is constantly seeking knowledge from a wide variety of fields, absorbing all kinds of information from a multitude of sources. He can sing, play musical instruments, dance, act, write, draw, and paint. In a world that seems to only value extreme specialization and focus, Matthew distinguishes himself by excelling at literally everything he does.  Seeing how all the dots connect (and in some cases, seeing dots that no one considered were even there) is what sets a true renaissance apart. Mr. Matthew Nelson is an exemplary young man who I highly recommend for any academic institution interested in participating in what will undoubtedly be a lifetime of great achievement. 

Sincerely,

Shirin Ebrahimi