Hi there - welcome to my site! This is meant to be a landing page for my writing, artwork, and music. I would consider myself a “jack of many trades, master of some.” I grew up with all kinds of interests and hobbies and passions, but at the root of all of them is the deep desire to create. And what is the purpose of creation if not to share it with the world? So, thank you for being here, and thank you for engaging with my work.

I always struggle with writing bios, but here it goes. My name is Palini Ramnarayan, and I am a San Diego native currently living in Chicago, IL. I graduated from Cornell University in 2021 with a major in Computer Science, minor in Music, and what felt like a PhD in being spread too thin. Self-deprecation aside, my time at Cornell was easily the best 4 years of my life. My biggest fear for undergrad was having to give up one or more of my passions to focus on academics. At Cornell, however, I never faced such a choice and thrived in an environment filled with equal parts practicality and passion (though, is there really a difference between the two?).

I started training in Hindustani Classical music when I was five years old, and of all my passions, it is without a doubt the most important to me. I picked up Western Classical violin when I was ten, and played in orchestras and took lessons all through college. It was violin that piqued my interest in music theory, which then set me down the path of composition and songwriting. In college, I joined a South Asian A Cappella group and unlocked a hidden passion. Through that group, I learned the deeply satisfying skills of arranging, editing, and mixing/mastering vocals.

Currently, I am a software engineer at Google, working on Looker.