Early Years

I’m a tinkerer at heart. I’ve been taking things apart since I was old enough to hold a screwdriver. When I was a child I disassembled my toys as often as I played with them. I built trebuchets and pneumatic cannons from construction waste. Long before I was old enough to drive I learned to repair cars and, when there wasn’t enough to fix on my own car, I repaired (and sometimes improved) friends’ cars as well.

In addition to working with my hands I’ve always been a voracious reader. I particularly enjoy books on science. Books by Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene and Richard Dawkins opened my world when I was in middle and high school, but I like any topic or genre as long as the material is interesting and challenging. My favorite books of the last few years include In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges, and Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland.

University

I considered many courses of study in college. Physics, history and philosophy were all contenders. In the end mechanical engineering was the obvious choice. I’ve had a knack for mechanical systems since I was a kid and it made sense to make some practical use of that talent. I graduated from the University of Washington with a BSME in 2012.

I also minored in Japanese and that decision allowed me to take an internship with Sumitomo Chemical in Niihama, Japan. My internship involved living and working for three months in a small town in Japan. It was a singular experience to be sure.

In my last quarter at the UW I had a gap in my schedule. I could have filled it with an easy elective but instead I decided to take an intro Java programming class. Learning Java opened a whole new world to me and programming has become a passion of mine.

Post-University

I liked programming so much that I continued taking computer science courses after I graduated. I took several as a post-baccalaureate at UW and then enrolled in a graduate certificate in computer science at Seattle University. At the same time I started a personal research project in robotic localization with my mobile robot, Colin.

While taking CS classes I also worked full time for Boeing as a factory support engineer for 737 final assembly. It’s a job that demands very quick turnaround to support a tight production schedule and it requires me to work on all parts of the airplane, not just one small feature.

Overall my job at Boeing was a good fit but my dream job is in research on robotics for space exploration. I recently decided to get serious about that dream and apply to PhD programs. I’m now thrilled to be in CU Boulder’s computer science PhD program. I work in the Autonomous Robotics and Perception Group and my research is in probabilistic localization and machine learning. This will be a good way to get the skills I need for a career in robotics research.

Philosophy

In addition to building, tinkering, and reading I spent a lot of my youth wakeboarding. My friends and I have a simple philosophy for wakeboarding: If you aren’t falling, you aren’t trying hard enough. If you want to learn to do anything on a wakeboard you have to be ready to fall. You have to push yourself outside of your comfort zone. You need to try things that at first feel dangerous and reckless and you will take a few hard falls before you get it right. This might seem harsh, but you never improve if you only do things you’re already good at.

I try to apply this philosophy to most aspects of my life. It gives me confidence that I can learn to do anything as long as I keep pressing forward and don’t get discouraged by my failures. It’s also why I left my high-paying job at Boeing in order to pursue a PhD and move toward a career in robotics research.