Macaron installation for Vanderbilt University’s Defense Summit conference.

West Palm Beach, Florida — I was invited to create a pastry installation for Vanderbilt University’s inaugural Defense Tech Leadership Summit on February 17 in West Palm Beach, Florida, convening leaders from business, government, defense and academia in a city emerging as a hub for defense and high-technology innovation.

The installation comprised of over 600 custom lemon-poppy seed macarons arranged like pixels to create the Vanderbilt logo in its signature black and gold color scheme.

The summit was co-hosted by Vanderbilt, Related Ross and Amazon Web Services. It reflected the region’s growing focus on national security and advanced technology and Vanderbilt’s expanding engagement in South Florida.

In opening remarks, Chancellor Daniel Diermeier emphasized the role universities play in advancing research and translating ideas into real-world impact.

“One of our hallmarks at Vanderbilt is our practice of what we call radical collaboration—reaching across disciplines and sectors to solve problems and invent things faster and better than we could on our own,” Diermeier said. “This event is radical collaboration brought to life.”