Born in Omaha, Nebraska on May 2, 2001, Evie is a Thai-American lesbian artist. When asked at a young age what she wanted to be when she grew up, Evie would always respond, "A designer of everything." She spent her childhood in museums and watching her artist parents, Laurie Victor Kay and Charles Kay Jr., create their own work. This helped shape her intrinsic love for the creative process; rather than just being concerned with the final state of an art piece, Evie became passionate about every moment leading up to an ultimate creation. As a child, she could be found painting on walls, drawing on her own arms, and assembling tissue sculptures on window ledges, just so she could open the windows and watch how the tissues would tumble through the breeze. With a camera in her hands, she also found her love for film by making a number of short films throughout her early years.
Evie attended Omaha Central High School while assisting at her parents' studio, Laurie and Charles Photographs. Her passion for STEM was strong, and when she had exhausted all of her high school classes by junior year, she decided to forego her senior year and enrolled early in the University of Southern California as a Presidential Scholar in the Resident Honors Program. Evie is now an artist turned high school dropout turned engineer. She graduated from USC first in May of 2022 with a B.S. in Industrial and Systems Engineering (Operations emphasis), and again in May of 2023 with an M.S. in Product Development Engineering (Systems emphasis). She now resides in Chicago.
Evie never lost sight of her creative roots, and outside of engineering work is often making art, weaving new stories, and expanding her artistic abilities. She has found ways to satisfy her interdisciplinary interests through 3D printing and thinking critically about how museum architecture and technology contribute to immersive experiences. She continues to indulge her love for filmmaking and likes to spend free time understanding the technology and work that goes on behind-the-scenes to make visual stories. Evie is a "designer of everything" creating a life that allows her to merge art and engineering.
