Why UC Merced?
UC Merced is one of the foremost institutions in California for providing undergraduate students with ample opportunities to perform research and join projects. For somebody like me who's interested in research and development for advanced technology, this university is an excellent place!
Why Your Major?
I chose Computer Science because I've always been fascinated with advanced computing technology. Throughout high school I had the opportunity to self-study machine learning, and it was in my study of this field that my interest in computing blossomed. This major gave ample opportunity for me to enhance my skillsets in machine learning, computer vision, and robotics.
Inspiration and Mentors
Many in the Aerospace and Physics community on-campus well facilitated my passion for research and pushing the bounds of human knowledge. To highlight a few, Dr. Lin Tian gave me an amazing view into the realm of Quantum Computing, and my research in her lab group has been some of the most engaging work I've done here. Dr. Brandon Stark's support of the aerospace efforts on-campus was also really inspiring, particularly his participation in the far-looking efforts to develop eVTOL transit in this state.
Memorable Academic Experience
The most interesting engineering class I had the opportunity to take was Dr. Ross Greer's graduate-level robotics course. Beyond the fundamentals in computer vision and AV-machine learning, this class also had a hardware component wherein we programmed an autonomous buggy to race around the SE2 second floor. As with any hardware in robotics, the development was a bit fraught with challenges, but the overall experience was wonderful and it greatly enriched my education.
What's Next?
I will be pursuing my PhD in Quantum Physics at the University of New Mexico, wherein I'll employ my computational background to develop advanced computing and sensing platforms for this next generation of advanced hardware. I'll also be working with the Air Force Research Labs in this capacity to maintain our country's technological edge in this new, exciting domain!
Anything else?
I would not have accomplished half as much as what I did this past four years without the support and encouragement of my peers! I would like to give special thanks to my fellows in the student chapter of AIAA, whose companionship and technical insight pushed me to reach for the stars! One team, one dream.
