Coming into his senior year of high school, Miles Clarke was feeling confident about his summer football training. A tight end and safety in high school, he was planning to walk on wherever he went to college. 

“I was working out two times a day,” Clarke said. “I had never eaten better, slept better, like I was very focused on my body and health and becoming the best athlete I could.”

But one day after a scrimmage, he woke up screaming with a shooting pain in his ankle.   

After a couple rounds at the emergency room, where two separate doctors gave him different diagnoses, he went to a pediatrician, who told him his white blood count was very high due to an infection in his leg. The white blood cells were losing to the infection, which was causing the white blood cells to pool and multiply.

“The doctor called me when he got the results back and said, ‘You have to go to the hospital right now,” said Clarke, from San Jose. “We rush to the hospital, they cut off my cast, and my ankle had swollen seven centimeters in diameter, so it was like huge. And then they immediately got me in an MRI to test.”

Following surgery, he started to recover in physical therapy. But six months in, his recovery plateaued, and he was told that the infection in his ankle ate the cartilage between the bones in his ankle, causing permanent damage. 

“Now she told me that every day I woke up, my ankle would be in pain, whenever I walked it would be in pain, and so I asked, ‘What do I do about that?’” Clarke said. “And she’s like, ‘There’s not really any cure for that right now.’”

Receiving this life-changing news that prevented him from returning to sports, Clarke became interested in biotechnology. His strengths in numbers and statistics inspired him to contribute to the biotechnology field on the business side.  

“When I do the things I’m good at, it empowers them to do what they’re good at,” Clarke said. “Because I am not an engineer or studying biology I feel like I can use my skills to contribute in a meaningful way.”

He is currently pursuing a degree in business administration, with a financial management concentration and serves as the treasurer of the EMPOWER club on campus.

EMPOWER works with people with disabilities and adversity to help engineer solutions to challenges they experience in their daily lives.

In his role as treasurer, Clarke raises money for the club and manages the budget. He decides how much funding each project gets and purchases materials for the club. 

“My role in EMPOWER is the boring numbers guy, and so it’s really helpful to use what I’m better at to help other people succeed,” Clarke said. “That’s very rewarding to me and gratifying.”

Clarke said he is inspired by the engineers in the club and the people they serve.

Patrick McGee, EMPOWER club president and biomedical engineering senior, said working with Clarke is seamless, and they work together on a weekly basis. McGee remarked on the great attitude Clarke brings to the meetings and how he is always taking initiative to come up with new ideas.

“He is always bringing a refreshing enthusiasm and a willingness to do more for the club. As someone who has been involved with EMPOWER for my entire four years of undergrad, he’s bringing a strong energy to the treasurer position,” McGee said. “We literally couldn’t function as a club without the work Miles does. He’s an integral part of our board.”

The club is currently working on 16 projects. These projects include a sensory feedback headband for a marching band for the blind, a prosthetic leg for a business professor’s dog and an umbrella to cover a wheelchair user from the rain.

“When I wake up, my ankle hurts, and it’s kind of a choice I have to make to get out of bed and actually go about my day, because it’s a lot of pain,” Clarke said. “And when I’m walking throughout my day, it’s just something that I have to constantly choose not to think about or constantly choose to overcome. And so it’s inspiring seeing other people who have things that they are trying to overcome as well and seeing them choose to continue.”

Despite the challenges, Clarke still has a passion for working out and does a lot of lower impact workouts that are low weight and high reps. However, he does wish he could still compete in sports.

When his friends would play pickup basketball and flag football, it was something that he could not join.

 “So it’s definitely sad still; I love sports,” Clarke said.

He had to redirect his passions elsewhere and at Cal Poly, getting involved in many aspects of campus life. 

“I think sports are a huge part of my life and a big identity for me, and so it was a little bit of an identity crisis when I lost that,” Clarke said. “So it definitely changed the trajectory of my life and like finding other things I’m passionate about, like the biomedical club. Now I’m passionate about business and the world of biomedical engineering.”

He rushed Delta Sigma Pi his freshman year, an organization who has given him best friends and many opportunities. Clarke works for the Dean’s Office and as an ambassador for the Orfalea College of Business.

“Just saying yes,” Clarke said. “A lot of the different opportunities that came up, I definitely could of said no to or kind of avoid them.”

Many of his opportunities on campus came from his friends, and he credits his community, including his church, for helping him through challenges.

His community also helped him recently start a Vibe Coding club on campus due to his interest in artificial intelligence and how it is going to impact the world. He is the treasurer of the club and also gives presentations about AI.

“There’s all kinds of scary things in the world of AI, so instead of hiding from it, I think it’s important to get involved in it,” Clarke said. 

After college, Clarke is interested in working in AI and biotechnology, trying to find a role that incorporates both of his passions. 

Long term, he wants to work as a venture capitalist, inspired by the conversations he would have with his dad while carpooling to high school. His father works as an executive recruiter for a venture capital firm. 

“When I wake up, my ankle hurts, and it’s kind of a choice I have to make to get out of bed and actually go about my day, because it’s a lot of pain. And when I’m walking throughout my day, it’s just something that I have to constantly choose not to think about or constantly choose to overcome. And so it’s inspiring seeing other people who have things that they are trying to overcome as well and seeing them choose to continue.”

                                                                     -- Miles Clarke

“I know he’ll go far in whichever career path he chooses,” McGee said. 

His life experiences have taught Clarke to have a hard work ethic, that he might have to do things he does not want to and not to live with regret

“Like, sure, I could think all day about what my life would have been like if my ankle thing didn’t happen, what my life would have been like if I didn’t experience pain every day but like that’s just not how it is,” Clarke said. “You can only really do with what you have.” 

Top photo: Miles Clarke, right, speaks with EMPOWER club's president Patrick McGee in the lab. (Photo: Jahan Ramezani)

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