Saturday, October 31, 2009
Decision theory
I was talking to a former boss who is writing a rec for me, and he mentioned Milton Weinstein, who applied decision theory to healthcare. I suspect this could be useful for system dynamics and agent based modeling.
NSF Previous Research
I have substantial research experience through undergraduate research programs and engineering companies. I have done well at each project and job because in addition to be technically skilled, I take initiative, and I persevere. These assets generalize to systems engineering. First-hand knowledge of the innovation and development process helps me better understand the challenges for technology policy. Since I’m particularly interested in energy systems engineering, experience in the electrical engineering industry is extremely relevant. Plus, some of the problem solving skills and math I learned from electrical engineering is related to the math in systems engineering.
During the summer after my junior year, I did a UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program) in the Smart Cities Group headed by Bill Mitchell. I worked on a project called Tripwire for Tad Hirsch, then a PhD candidate in the group. The San Jose airport is located near residential areas, inhabited primarily by low-income minorities, and there is evidence that the resulting noise pollution is harmful to children as well as wildlife. I made a wireless device that would listen for planes overhead and then automatically call the customer complaint hotline for the airport. I used a small microphone to listen for planes, and a microcontroller to process the signal and communicate with an attached cell phone. These battery powered components were put in a hollowed-out coconut and hung in a tree. When a plane is detected, the microcontroller commands the cell phone to call a server that Tad set up, which would then call the airport with recorded messages from people and animals complaining about the noise. It was installed at ZeroOne San Jose: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge & the Thirteenth International Symposium of Electronic Art (ISEA2006) August 7-13, 2006. It was exciting to consider the wider impacts of the device as a tool to empower the disenfranchised.
When I worked in industry, I found that goals of funders and customers really influence research and technology development. I worked at Boston Dynamics, a legged robotics company that was founded by Marc Raibert in 1992 from the Legged Robotics Lab at MIT. Boston Dynamics was a research company, and Big Dog was almost wholly funded by DARPA grants. As a result, it was presented as a pack mule for the army, and the research was geared towards things that would be useful to the army, which are for it to be able to climb hills while carrying a load. I also worked at Tagsense, a small RFID company founded by Rich Fletcher, who is also a researcher at the MIT Media Lab. Tagsense has a few standard products, but a large part of their business was custom design solutions. Most of the customers are businesses interested in implementing RFID technology into their products. Many technology firms start out doing custom designs before putting out standard products so that the design engineers can work on new technology rather than making small custom modifications to the same product. That was the case for Synqor as well, a power electronics company I have been working at since I graduated. They now have hundreds of standard products. However, they continue to work on custom designs, which are sometimes completely new designs that start a new line of standard products. Working at so many different places has given me insight into the industry. It has made me more interested in policy to identify research and technology needed for a sustainable world since I am no longer sure that the most needed technology necessarily gets the funding needed to get developed.
I also worked at a startup venture called Reaction Time LLC as the sole engineer. I worked with Thomas Hawkins, who had an idea for reaction time training device for lacrosse players that would be connected to a computer. He wanted a training device that would simulate a ball machine so that athletes in college can practice in their dorms to accommodate their busy schedules. That is, instead of actually shooting a ball towards a player, it plays a movie of a ball being shot towards a player in one of eight positions. The player responds by putting the racket in the corresponding position. There are eight USB devices to be positioned around a room, and they have proximity sensors, which send signals back to the software when the racket comes close. The software calculates the time it took for the player to “hit” the right device, records the data, and then draws a graph. Not only would this be more convenient, this would allow sports training to be more quantitative and methodical. I designed and built the software, hardware, and firmware. I learned a lot since I was the only engineer, and it was exciting to be a part of a start up venture.
At Reaction Time LLC and at my UROP, I worked for people who were not in my field, and I had to discern the best course of action and work more independently. Tad is a computer programmer and artist rather than an electrical engineer so it was up to me to design and build the hardware. Thomas Hawkins is a manager in the medical insurance field. He had the idea for a product, but I also contributed significantly to the details of the product design as I was implementing his idea. For Tad and Tom, I researched options with estimated execution times and budgets and present them along with my recommendations. It was risky, and I was not always right, but it is important try things out instead of being paralyzed with indecision. In cases where I am wrong or make a mistake, I simply reevaluate the situation, present my findings, and change the plans.
At Synqor, I had more guidance, and I also gained experience working in a team. Synqor is a power electronics company founded by MIT professor Marty Schlecht, coauthor of the textbook for the power electronics graduate class. One of the responsibilities of my team is to troubleshoot and fix units that have failed at the automatic testing stations. I have become very rigorous at collecting proof so that I can communicate my findings to others especially senior design engineers. Several times, things I noticed that seemed like component tolerance issues turned out to be design issues or wrong components. I also characterize new products and design tests to make sure they are robust before they go onto the market. I assist the head design engineers by debugging the problems and collecting data so they can fix the design. One product line I brought to release earlier this year is used in a fuel cell drone by NRL, which recently completed a 23 hour flight.
I have been part of almost every stage of innovation and product development, and I have worked at companies at different stages of growth. I am an independent worker, and I enjoy taking initiative on projects. I work well with many different kinds of people because I have strong communication skills. I also have a strong math background from all my engineering experiences. I have also taken a few policy courses including Rise of China and Regulation of Chemicals, Radiation, and Biotechnology. I have done independent research on social issues, and I have helped develop content for talks on sustainability. I want to combine the skills I have acquired from engineering with my interest in policy. When designing electronic circuits, it’s important to have a good model to simulate the design on the computer. I want to apply this concept to designing energy technology policy, and I can do that as a systems engineer.
During the summer after my junior year, I did a UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program) in the Smart Cities Group headed by Bill Mitchell. I worked on a project called Tripwire for Tad Hirsch, then a PhD candidate in the group. The San Jose airport is located near residential areas, inhabited primarily by low-income minorities, and there is evidence that the resulting noise pollution is harmful to children as well as wildlife. I made a wireless device that would listen for planes overhead and then automatically call the customer complaint hotline for the airport. I used a small microphone to listen for planes, and a microcontroller to process the signal and communicate with an attached cell phone. These battery powered components were put in a hollowed-out coconut and hung in a tree. When a plane is detected, the microcontroller commands the cell phone to call a server that Tad set up, which would then call the airport with recorded messages from people and animals complaining about the noise. It was installed at ZeroOne San Jose: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge & the Thirteenth International Symposium of Electronic Art (ISEA2006) August 7-13, 2006. It was exciting to consider the wider impacts of the device as a tool to empower the disenfranchised.
When I worked in industry, I found that goals of funders and customers really influence research and technology development. I worked at Boston Dynamics, a legged robotics company that was founded by Marc Raibert in 1992 from the Legged Robotics Lab at MIT. Boston Dynamics was a research company, and Big Dog was almost wholly funded by DARPA grants. As a result, it was presented as a pack mule for the army, and the research was geared towards things that would be useful to the army, which are for it to be able to climb hills while carrying a load. I also worked at Tagsense, a small RFID company founded by Rich Fletcher, who is also a researcher at the MIT Media Lab. Tagsense has a few standard products, but a large part of their business was custom design solutions. Most of the customers are businesses interested in implementing RFID technology into their products. Many technology firms start out doing custom designs before putting out standard products so that the design engineers can work on new technology rather than making small custom modifications to the same product. That was the case for Synqor as well, a power electronics company I have been working at since I graduated. They now have hundreds of standard products. However, they continue to work on custom designs, which are sometimes completely new designs that start a new line of standard products. Working at so many different places has given me insight into the industry. It has made me more interested in policy to identify research and technology needed for a sustainable world since I am no longer sure that the most needed technology necessarily gets the funding needed to get developed.
I also worked at a startup venture called Reaction Time LLC as the sole engineer. I worked with Thomas Hawkins, who had an idea for reaction time training device for lacrosse players that would be connected to a computer. He wanted a training device that would simulate a ball machine so that athletes in college can practice in their dorms to accommodate their busy schedules. That is, instead of actually shooting a ball towards a player, it plays a movie of a ball being shot towards a player in one of eight positions. The player responds by putting the racket in the corresponding position. There are eight USB devices to be positioned around a room, and they have proximity sensors, which send signals back to the software when the racket comes close. The software calculates the time it took for the player to “hit” the right device, records the data, and then draws a graph. Not only would this be more convenient, this would allow sports training to be more quantitative and methodical. I designed and built the software, hardware, and firmware. I learned a lot since I was the only engineer, and it was exciting to be a part of a start up venture.
At Reaction Time LLC and at my UROP, I worked for people who were not in my field, and I had to discern the best course of action and work more independently. Tad is a computer programmer and artist rather than an electrical engineer so it was up to me to design and build the hardware. Thomas Hawkins is a manager in the medical insurance field. He had the idea for a product, but I also contributed significantly to the details of the product design as I was implementing his idea. For Tad and Tom, I researched options with estimated execution times and budgets and present them along with my recommendations. It was risky, and I was not always right, but it is important try things out instead of being paralyzed with indecision. In cases where I am wrong or make a mistake, I simply reevaluate the situation, present my findings, and change the plans.
At Synqor, I had more guidance, and I also gained experience working in a team. Synqor is a power electronics company founded by MIT professor Marty Schlecht, coauthor of the textbook for the power electronics graduate class. One of the responsibilities of my team is to troubleshoot and fix units that have failed at the automatic testing stations. I have become very rigorous at collecting proof so that I can communicate my findings to others especially senior design engineers. Several times, things I noticed that seemed like component tolerance issues turned out to be design issues or wrong components. I also characterize new products and design tests to make sure they are robust before they go onto the market. I assist the head design engineers by debugging the problems and collecting data so they can fix the design. One product line I brought to release earlier this year is used in a fuel cell drone by NRL, which recently completed a 23 hour flight.
I have been part of almost every stage of innovation and product development, and I have worked at companies at different stages of growth. I am an independent worker, and I enjoy taking initiative on projects. I work well with many different kinds of people because I have strong communication skills. I also have a strong math background from all my engineering experiences. I have also taken a few policy courses including Rise of China and Regulation of Chemicals, Radiation, and Biotechnology. I have done independent research on social issues, and I have helped develop content for talks on sustainability. I want to combine the skills I have acquired from engineering with my interest in policy. When designing electronic circuits, it’s important to have a good model to simulate the design on the computer. I want to apply this concept to designing energy technology policy, and I can do that as a systems engineer.
I Am Useful
Naval Research Lab Fuel Cell Unmanned Air Vehicle Completes 23-Hour Flight
Found out this drone uses a product I helped bring to market earlier this year. It is a non-isolated DC-DC converter that has current limiting capability, making to useful for charging batteries. There were a lot of problems with it when I first started working on it. To prevent current from flowing from the output to the input, there are FETs on the output that only turn on when the unit is enabled. When I first worked on it, I could not figure out why the unit was getting so hot even when there was no load. Finally, I blew up those FETs somehow, and we realized that they were not getting turned on, and that the unit was working because the current was going through the body diode of those FETs.
It's exciting to see it actually be used for something, especially in cutting edge research, even if it is a military application, haha.
Found out this drone uses a product I helped bring to market earlier this year. It is a non-isolated DC-DC converter that has current limiting capability, making to useful for charging batteries. There were a lot of problems with it when I first started working on it. To prevent current from flowing from the output to the input, there are FETs on the output that only turn on when the unit is enabled. When I first worked on it, I could not figure out why the unit was getting so hot even when there was no load. Finally, I blew up those FETs somehow, and we realized that they were not getting turned on, and that the unit was working because the current was going through the body diode of those FETs.
It's exciting to see it actually be used for something, especially in cutting edge research, even if it is a military application, haha.
Friday, October 30, 2009
NSF Personal Essay Upgrade to 2.0
I became an engineer because I felt that I could directly and unambiguously make a positive impact by building things people need. At the same time, I always knew that there is almost never a purely technological solution. That is why I have always been interested in policy and I have organized events such as the 2009 MIT Sustainability Summit. Through the conference, I was introduced to system dynamics as a way of approaching complex problems such as climate change. Finally, I can combine my interests in socioeconomic issues, math, and engineering by becoming a systems engineer, designing technology policy about energy generation and usage using mathematical modeling.
I studied electrical engineering as an undergraduate because of my first lab experience in the Introduction to Circuits class. What once seemed like very complicated equations on a piece of paper sprang to life and I understood it intuitively once I could probe it in real time. However, the tangibility of the system was not important; it was that the math represented a real system. I found that I especially liked control theory when I took a class on Feedback and Control. Since control theory is central to robotics, I took a year off from school after my junior year to work at a robotics company, Boston Dynamics.
My year off was very productive and personally transformative. I started a blog of ideas to practice communicating my thoughts and ambitions, which was really important to my personal development. I had noticed that many of my male colleagues were much more in the habit of thinking about projects and ideas than I or my female colleagues were. I believe this contributes to the gender discrepancy in achievement after high school. To avoid perpetuating that pattern, I read and blogged about current events, climate change, foreign policy, food production policy, and other social issues. I have continued to blog and do independent research ever since then. I have also encouraged my friends to contribute to my blog, and some of them have started their own blogs about their interests and projects.
Some books I read that made an impression on me are BreakThrough by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, advocates of a paradigm shift for environmentalism, BlowBack by Chalmers Johnson, who writes about the consequences of shortsighted foreign policy, Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken and Amory Lovins, who recommend new business models for a sustainable world, and World Dynamics by Jay Forrester, founder of system dynamics. All of these books present problems as complex integrated systems and foster a holistic world view. Solutions need to be designed with a better understanding of the whole system to ensure long term effectiveness and minimize adverse unintended consequences.
During my year off, I considered wider impacts of my career and how to combine my broader interests in policy and social issues with engineering. I had learned about various applications for electrical engineering and possible career paths by working at several different companies. In addition to the robotics company, I worked at an RFID company, Tagsense, and a startup making an electronic training device for athletes, Reaction Time LLC. I decided I wanted to develop technology for efficient resource use. I did not know if this should be the number one national priority, but I knew that it would be necessary sooner or later. I studied power electronics and worked on wireless sensor networks. Since graduating, I have been working at a power electronics company, Synqor, a leader in efficient power converters and inverters.
Outside of work and school, I continued to think about social issues and policy questions. To support programs I liked, I worked tutored low income students during fall of junior year at City on a Hill School and MATCH School the summer after my junior year. MATCH is a charter high school for low income students, and the summer program was for incoming freshmen who needed to be brought up to baseline math and reading levels. The theory is that the success of these students is contingent most on one-on-one attention and high expectations for them to live up to. The student I worked with scored a 54% on the math diagnostic at the beginning of the program, and at the end of the five week program she scored 94% on the same test. I was really proud of her, and it was a very rewarding experience.
The summer after sophomore year and the summer after I graduated, I worked for the MIT Women's Technology Program as a resident tutor. The program is for high school girls interested in math and science to come to MIT and take a few classes taught and tutored by female MIT students. The goal is to build their self-confidence while challenging them academically. Besides technical skills, women need to develop a habit and a support structure for thinking ambitiously about projects they want to do. WTP provides a safe environment for them to practice taking risks without feeling intimidated by male colleagues. I continue to be a mentor for some of the young women I have met through this program. I love being a part of changing the education and gender equality paradigms.
However, my greatest passion is sustainability, and I wonder about what would really make the most impact in bringing about a transition to sustainable living. It can only be possible if the best and the brightest students in every field are working on projects related to sustainability rather than considering it a separate career path. I had been director of the lecture committee of the MIT Lecture Series Committee and put together many events targeted at MIT undergraduates including a lecture with the hosts of the MythBusters, a popular TV show on the Discovery Channel. It was a sold out event, attended by over 1200 people. After organizing that event, I realized that I had an amazing platform for broadcasting ideas I wanted to promote.
I put together a lecture event in February 2008 called The Big Picture Panel on Sustainable Energy, which would feature four MIT professors from different fields to talk about how their work is related to sustainability and climate change. It was the kickoff event for the Focus on Climate Change Symposium, which was a series of smaller departmental talks. The Big Picture Panel was attended by over 250 people. I was the lead organizer, and two other student volunteers helped with the logistics, the message, and the publicity.
I then helped to organize the first student-run conference on sustainability, the MIT Sustainability Summit in April 2009. It was a one day conference with three panels moderated by MIT faculty, three keynote speeches, and six smaller talks with leaders in industry, the public sector, and academia. The conference was attended by over 250 people including students, faculty, business people, people working in the public sector, and alumni. I took a leadership role in developing the content, literature, and publicity for the summit. As a group we worked on writing the scenarios and researched potential speakers, and I finalized much of the literature for the group to use when contacting sponsors, advisers, and the general public. I invited Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus from the Breakthrough Institute to give the concluding keynote. Through working on this event, I learned about system dynamics and people using quantitative modeling methods to work on policy and technology. I immediately knew I wanted to be a systems engineer because this field utilizes all my strengths and combines my interests.
The challenges facing the nation and the world today need to be met without depleting the very resources required to maintain a high standard of living. I want to analyze long term effects of technology and policy, especially issues that have a regional, national, or even global scope. I would love to work at a think tank or research group to gain a better understanding of the system, make policy suggestions, and also be involved in implementation. I have been taking the System Dynamics Self Study online course created by Professor Jay Forrester and provided by MIT Open Courseware. An NSF grant would fund more rigorous graduate study and research. In graduate school, I will gain a strong foundation for a career in systems engineering while contributing to cutting edge research, and I will be able to work with and be mentored by leaders in the field.
I studied electrical engineering as an undergraduate because of my first lab experience in the Introduction to Circuits class. What once seemed like very complicated equations on a piece of paper sprang to life and I understood it intuitively once I could probe it in real time. However, the tangibility of the system was not important; it was that the math represented a real system. I found that I especially liked control theory when I took a class on Feedback and Control. Since control theory is central to robotics, I took a year off from school after my junior year to work at a robotics company, Boston Dynamics.
My year off was very productive and personally transformative. I started a blog of ideas to practice communicating my thoughts and ambitions, which was really important to my personal development. I had noticed that many of my male colleagues were much more in the habit of thinking about projects and ideas than I or my female colleagues were. I believe this contributes to the gender discrepancy in achievement after high school. To avoid perpetuating that pattern, I read and blogged about current events, climate change, foreign policy, food production policy, and other social issues. I have continued to blog and do independent research ever since then. I have also encouraged my friends to contribute to my blog, and some of them have started their own blogs about their interests and projects.
Some books I read that made an impression on me are BreakThrough by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, advocates of a paradigm shift for environmentalism, BlowBack by Chalmers Johnson, who writes about the consequences of shortsighted foreign policy, Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken and Amory Lovins, who recommend new business models for a sustainable world, and World Dynamics by Jay Forrester, founder of system dynamics. All of these books present problems as complex integrated systems and foster a holistic world view. Solutions need to be designed with a better understanding of the whole system to ensure long term effectiveness and minimize adverse unintended consequences.
During my year off, I considered wider impacts of my career and how to combine my broader interests in policy and social issues with engineering. I had learned about various applications for electrical engineering and possible career paths by working at several different companies. In addition to the robotics company, I worked at an RFID company, Tagsense, and a startup making an electronic training device for athletes, Reaction Time LLC. I decided I wanted to develop technology for efficient resource use. I did not know if this should be the number one national priority, but I knew that it would be necessary sooner or later. I studied power electronics and worked on wireless sensor networks. Since graduating, I have been working at a power electronics company, Synqor, a leader in efficient power converters and inverters.
Outside of work and school, I continued to think about social issues and policy questions. To support programs I liked, I worked tutored low income students during fall of junior year at City on a Hill School and MATCH School the summer after my junior year. MATCH is a charter high school for low income students, and the summer program was for incoming freshmen who needed to be brought up to baseline math and reading levels. The theory is that the success of these students is contingent most on one-on-one attention and high expectations for them to live up to. The student I worked with scored a 54% on the math diagnostic at the beginning of the program, and at the end of the five week program she scored 94% on the same test. I was really proud of her, and it was a very rewarding experience.
The summer after sophomore year and the summer after I graduated, I worked for the MIT Women's Technology Program as a resident tutor. The program is for high school girls interested in math and science to come to MIT and take a few classes taught and tutored by female MIT students. The goal is to build their self-confidence while challenging them academically. Besides technical skills, women need to develop a habit and a support structure for thinking ambitiously about projects they want to do. WTP provides a safe environment for them to practice taking risks without feeling intimidated by male colleagues. I continue to be a mentor for some of the young women I have met through this program. I love being a part of changing the education and gender equality paradigms.
However, my greatest passion is sustainability, and I wonder about what would really make the most impact in bringing about a transition to sustainable living. It can only be possible if the best and the brightest students in every field are working on projects related to sustainability rather than considering it a separate career path. I had been director of the lecture committee of the MIT Lecture Series Committee and put together many events targeted at MIT undergraduates including a lecture with the hosts of the MythBusters, a popular TV show on the Discovery Channel. It was a sold out event, attended by over 1200 people. After organizing that event, I realized that I had an amazing platform for broadcasting ideas I wanted to promote.
I put together a lecture event in February 2008 called The Big Picture Panel on Sustainable Energy, which would feature four MIT professors from different fields to talk about how their work is related to sustainability and climate change. It was the kickoff event for the Focus on Climate Change Symposium, which was a series of smaller departmental talks. The Big Picture Panel was attended by over 250 people. I was the lead organizer, and two other student volunteers helped with the logistics, the message, and the publicity.
I then helped to organize the first student-run conference on sustainability, the MIT Sustainability Summit in April 2009. It was a one day conference with three panels moderated by MIT faculty, three keynote speeches, and six smaller talks with leaders in industry, the public sector, and academia. The conference was attended by over 250 people including students, faculty, business people, people working in the public sector, and alumni. I took a leadership role in developing the content, literature, and publicity for the summit. As a group we worked on writing the scenarios and researched potential speakers, and I finalized much of the literature for the group to use when contacting sponsors, advisers, and the general public. I invited Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus from the Breakthrough Institute to give the concluding keynote. Through working on this event, I learned about system dynamics and people using quantitative modeling methods to work on policy and technology. I immediately knew I wanted to be a systems engineer because this field utilizes all my strengths and combines my interests.
The challenges facing the nation and the world today need to be met without depleting the very resources required to maintain a high standard of living. I want to analyze long term effects of technology and policy, especially issues that have a regional, national, or even global scope. I would love to work at a think tank or research group to gain a better understanding of the system, make policy suggestions, and also be involved in implementation. I have been taking the System Dynamics Self Study online course created by Professor Jay Forrester and provided by MIT Open Courseware. An NSF grant would fund more rigorous graduate study and research. In graduate school, I will gain a strong foundation for a career in systems engineering while contributing to cutting edge research, and I will be able to work with and be mentored by leaders in the field.
No Point in Afghanistan?
Mathew Hoh resigns the foreign service because he does not think it makes strategic sense to stay in Afghanistan. While I think there are problems with pulling out, I have to agree with him in general. While it would be great if Afghanistan had a modern government, the US really does not have the money to be over there.
while yang has been pmosing
I've been slacking. And let me tell you, it's GREAT. Moral of the story: after starting grad school, get out as fast as you can, and then take lots of time off. I'm off to see the big red button used to launch nuclear missiles during the cold war. more later!
pictures of travels
pictures of travels
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Obama Energy Speech at MIT
transcript
It is actually relevant to my research proposal for NSF.
Some favorite quotes
It is actually relevant to my research proposal for NSF.
Some favorite quotes
The truth is we also face more complex challenges than generations past. A medical system that holds the promise of unlocking new cures is attached to a health care system that has the potential to bankrupt families and businesses and our government. A global marketplace that links the trader on Wall Street to the homeowner on Main Street to the factory worker in China -- an economy in which we all share opportunity is also an economy in which we all share crisis. We face threats to our security that seek -- there are threats to our security that are based on those who would seek to exploit the very interconnectedness and openness that's so essential to our prosperity. The system of energy that powers our economy also undermines our security and endangers our planet.
The Recovery Act includes $80 billion to put tens of thousands of Americans to work developing new battery technologies for hybrid vehicles; modernizing the electric grid; making our homes and businesses more energy efficient; doubling our capacity to generate renewable electricity. These are creating private-sector jobs weatherizing homes; manufacturing cars and trucks; upgrading to smart electric meters; installing solar panels; assembling wind turbines; building new facilities and factories and laboratories all across America. And, by the way, helping to finance extraordinary research.
The Recovery Act provides the largest single boost in scientific research in history. Let me repeat that: The Recovery Act, the stimulus bill represents the largest single boost in scientific research in history. (Applause.) An increase -- that's an increase in funding that's already making a difference right here on this campus. And my budget also makes the research and experimentation tax credit permanent -- a tax credit that spurs innovation and jobs, adding $2 to the economy for every dollar that it costs.
This is the nation that will lead the clean energy economy of tomorrow
NSF Personal Statement
Engineering Policy All Day
My career aspirations have evolved over the years, influenced by my varied experiences at work, school, and leadership activities. Up until now, I have been pursuing an electrical engineering career while reading about and working on social issues on the side. Engineering classes and work have made me a good analytical and methodical thinker and first introduced me to systems thinking. I have also learned to be self-motivated and an independent thinker by studying socioeconomic issues such as foreign policy, environmental sustainability, education, and gender equality in and out of the classroom. To contribute to implementing ideas I particularly liked because I thought it would have a wide impact, I have tutored low income students and high school girls interested in engineering. Furthermore, I have organized events such as the 2009 Sustainability Summit at MIT. I have also learned to be an effective leader as well as a team player.
Through the conference, I was introduced to system dynamics as a way of approaching complex problems such as climate change. Finally, I feel that I have found a way I can merge my interest in socioeconomic issues, leadership and communication skills, strong math background, and engineering intuition. I want to be a systems engineer, designing technology policy about energy generation and usage using mathematical modeling.
I have always enjoyed quantitative reasoning applied to real systems. I studied electrical engineering as an undergraduate because of my first lab experience in the Introduction to Circuits class. We were building an audio amplifier. What once seemed like very complicated equations on a piece of paper sprang to life and I understood it intuitively once I could probe it in real time. However, the tangibility of the system was not important; it was that the math represented a real system. I found that I especially liked control theory when I took a class on Feedback and Control.
During my year off I learned more about other applications for electrical engineering and possible career paths. Since control theory is central to robotics, I took a year off from school after my junior year to work at a robotics company, Boston Dynamics. I also worked at Reaction Time LLC developing electronic training equipment and Tagsense developing RFID solutions for medical applications. At Reaction Time LLC, I worked with a businessman who had an idea and needed someone with technical expertise to make it happen.
While out of school, I had time to consider wider impacts of my career and how to combine my broader interests in policy and social issues with engineering. In my spare time, I read about climate change, foreign policy, food production policy, and other social issues. I started blogging about what I read, current events, and ideas to practice communicating my thoughts and ambitions. After returning to school, I became a much more focused student. I had decided I wanted to develop technology for efficient resource use. I wanted to focus on efficient energy generation and usage.
I started a research project (UROP) with the Smart Cities Group at the MIT Media Lab, working on making a wireless sensor network with sensors for plant water usage. This technology can make urban agriculture possible and also conventional agriculture less resource intensive. I took and did well in two power electronics courses, a lab and a graduate level class. After I graduated, I worked at Synqor, a power electronics company founded by Marty Schlecht who was faculty at MIT and coauthor of the textbook for the power electronics graduate class. At Synqor, I worked on troubleshooting existing products to improve the manufacturing process. I also characterized new products to finalize designs and make sure they are robust before they go onto the market. I learned technical skills but also to seek help when needed, coordinate with teammates, and coordinate with supervisors to make sure my efforts are in sync with the goals of the company. When we brought on a new team member, I took the initiative and provided some training for troubleshooting units. I made suggestions for improving the process such as separating units that someone has looked at before from other units.
Outside of work and school, I continued to think about social issues and policy questions. To support policies I liked, I worked for MATCH School, a charter school for low income students, as a tutor in the summer after my junior year. The student I worked with scored a 54% on the math diagnostic at the beginning of the program, and by the end of the program she scored 94%. For the summer after sophomore year and the summer after I graduated, I worked for the MIT Women's Technology Program as a resident tutor. Besides technical skills, women also need to develop a habit and a support structure for thinking ambitiously about projects they want to do. I really liked being a part of changing the education and gender equality paradigms, but ultimately, I decided I was more interested in and could contribute more to sustainability policy than education.
I wonder about what would really make the most impact in bringing about a transition to sustainable living. I felt that it can only be possible if the best and the brightest students such as those at MIT were working on projects related to sustainability rather than considering it a separate career path. I had been director of the lecture committee of the MIT Lecture Series Committee and put together many events including a lecture with the MythBusters, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, attended by over 1200 people. After organizing that event, I realized that I had an amazing platform for broadcasting ideas I wanted to promote.
My senior year in college, I put together a lecture event that was to be the kickoff event for the Focus on Climate Change Symposium. The Big Picture Panel on Sustainability would feature four professors at MIT from different fields to talk about how their work is related to sustainability and climate change. It was attended by over 250 people, and I felt it really made an impact. While I was the lead organizer, a couple of friends helped work on the logistics, the message, and the publicity. I then helped to organize the first student-run conference on sustainability, the MIT Sustainability Summit in April 2009. With the expertise I had gained through putting together other events, I took a leadership role in developing the content, literature, and publicity for the summit. It was a one day conference with three panels moderated by MIT faculty, three keynote speeches, and six smaller talks with leaders in industry, the public sector, and academia. It was truly a team effort with about twenty team-members. I made sure we had talking points so that sponsors, attendees, and speakers all got the same message no matter who they talked to. As a volunteer effort, it was also really important that people followed through on their tasks so I set up shared spreadsheets and documents for people in my group to work on and track progress. The conference was attended by over 250 people including students, faculty, business people, people working in the public sector, and alumni. It was very exciting and I learned a lot about persistence, persuasion, and working with different kinds of people.
Through working on this event, I learned about system dynamics and people using quantitative modeling methods to work on policy and technology. I immediately knew I wanted to be a systems engineer because this field utilizes all my strengths and combine my interests.
The challenges facing the nation and the world today need to be met without depleting the very resources required to maintain a high standard of living. I am broadly interested in challenges facing health care, education, and foreign policy, and I'm particularly interested in energy generation and use. I want to analyze long term effects of technology and policy. I want to eventually be a policy advisor on the regional or national level, most likely working in the public sector, but working in the private sector to develop new business models and products is also a possibility. First, I need to learn the techniques and analytical tools and also background information. Then, I want to work at a think tank or research group to make policy suggestions and then possibly become more involved in implementation. The NSF fellowship would help me gain the knowledge I need to make higher level strategic recommendations for policy and technology.
My career aspirations have evolved over the years, influenced by my varied experiences at work, school, and leadership activities. Up until now, I have been pursuing an electrical engineering career while reading about and working on social issues on the side. Engineering classes and work have made me a good analytical and methodical thinker and first introduced me to systems thinking. I have also learned to be self-motivated and an independent thinker by studying socioeconomic issues such as foreign policy, environmental sustainability, education, and gender equality in and out of the classroom. To contribute to implementing ideas I particularly liked because I thought it would have a wide impact, I have tutored low income students and high school girls interested in engineering. Furthermore, I have organized events such as the 2009 Sustainability Summit at MIT. I have also learned to be an effective leader as well as a team player.
Through the conference, I was introduced to system dynamics as a way of approaching complex problems such as climate change. Finally, I feel that I have found a way I can merge my interest in socioeconomic issues, leadership and communication skills, strong math background, and engineering intuition. I want to be a systems engineer, designing technology policy about energy generation and usage using mathematical modeling.
I have always enjoyed quantitative reasoning applied to real systems. I studied electrical engineering as an undergraduate because of my first lab experience in the Introduction to Circuits class. We were building an audio amplifier. What once seemed like very complicated equations on a piece of paper sprang to life and I understood it intuitively once I could probe it in real time. However, the tangibility of the system was not important; it was that the math represented a real system. I found that I especially liked control theory when I took a class on Feedback and Control.
During my year off I learned more about other applications for electrical engineering and possible career paths. Since control theory is central to robotics, I took a year off from school after my junior year to work at a robotics company, Boston Dynamics. I also worked at Reaction Time LLC developing electronic training equipment and Tagsense developing RFID solutions for medical applications. At Reaction Time LLC, I worked with a businessman who had an idea and needed someone with technical expertise to make it happen.
While out of school, I had time to consider wider impacts of my career and how to combine my broader interests in policy and social issues with engineering. In my spare time, I read about climate change, foreign policy, food production policy, and other social issues. I started blogging about what I read, current events, and ideas to practice communicating my thoughts and ambitions. After returning to school, I became a much more focused student. I had decided I wanted to develop technology for efficient resource use. I wanted to focus on efficient energy generation and usage.
I started a research project (UROP) with the Smart Cities Group at the MIT Media Lab, working on making a wireless sensor network with sensors for plant water usage. This technology can make urban agriculture possible and also conventional agriculture less resource intensive. I took and did well in two power electronics courses, a lab and a graduate level class. After I graduated, I worked at Synqor, a power electronics company founded by Marty Schlecht who was faculty at MIT and coauthor of the textbook for the power electronics graduate class. At Synqor, I worked on troubleshooting existing products to improve the manufacturing process. I also characterized new products to finalize designs and make sure they are robust before they go onto the market. I learned technical skills but also to seek help when needed, coordinate with teammates, and coordinate with supervisors to make sure my efforts are in sync with the goals of the company. When we brought on a new team member, I took the initiative and provided some training for troubleshooting units. I made suggestions for improving the process such as separating units that someone has looked at before from other units.
Outside of work and school, I continued to think about social issues and policy questions. To support policies I liked, I worked for MATCH School, a charter school for low income students, as a tutor in the summer after my junior year. The student I worked with scored a 54% on the math diagnostic at the beginning of the program, and by the end of the program she scored 94%. For the summer after sophomore year and the summer after I graduated, I worked for the MIT Women's Technology Program as a resident tutor. Besides technical skills, women also need to develop a habit and a support structure for thinking ambitiously about projects they want to do. I really liked being a part of changing the education and gender equality paradigms, but ultimately, I decided I was more interested in and could contribute more to sustainability policy than education.
I wonder about what would really make the most impact in bringing about a transition to sustainable living. I felt that it can only be possible if the best and the brightest students such as those at MIT were working on projects related to sustainability rather than considering it a separate career path. I had been director of the lecture committee of the MIT Lecture Series Committee and put together many events including a lecture with the MythBusters, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, attended by over 1200 people. After organizing that event, I realized that I had an amazing platform for broadcasting ideas I wanted to promote.
My senior year in college, I put together a lecture event that was to be the kickoff event for the Focus on Climate Change Symposium. The Big Picture Panel on Sustainability would feature four professors at MIT from different fields to talk about how their work is related to sustainability and climate change. It was attended by over 250 people, and I felt it really made an impact. While I was the lead organizer, a couple of friends helped work on the logistics, the message, and the publicity. I then helped to organize the first student-run conference on sustainability, the MIT Sustainability Summit in April 2009. With the expertise I had gained through putting together other events, I took a leadership role in developing the content, literature, and publicity for the summit. It was a one day conference with three panels moderated by MIT faculty, three keynote speeches, and six smaller talks with leaders in industry, the public sector, and academia. It was truly a team effort with about twenty team-members. I made sure we had talking points so that sponsors, attendees, and speakers all got the same message no matter who they talked to. As a volunteer effort, it was also really important that people followed through on their tasks so I set up shared spreadsheets and documents for people in my group to work on and track progress. The conference was attended by over 250 people including students, faculty, business people, people working in the public sector, and alumni. It was very exciting and I learned a lot about persistence, persuasion, and working with different kinds of people.
Through working on this event, I learned about system dynamics and people using quantitative modeling methods to work on policy and technology. I immediately knew I wanted to be a systems engineer because this field utilizes all my strengths and combine my interests.
The challenges facing the nation and the world today need to be met without depleting the very resources required to maintain a high standard of living. I am broadly interested in challenges facing health care, education, and foreign policy, and I'm particularly interested in energy generation and use. I want to analyze long term effects of technology and policy. I want to eventually be a policy advisor on the regional or national level, most likely working in the public sector, but working in the private sector to develop new business models and products is also a possibility. First, I need to learn the techniques and analytical tools and also background information. Then, I want to work at a think tank or research group to make policy suggestions and then possibly become more involved in implementation. The NSF fellowship would help me gain the knowledge I need to make higher level strategic recommendations for policy and technology.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
White Fox
I am excited about the arguments between the White House and Fox News. I am bemused that Fox is trying to compare Obama with Nixon because of an alleged "enemies list." On the one hand, I think it's a stupid argument, since one man's news is another's bias. At any rate, MSNBC is undeniably biased the other way, although I'd argue in a less destructive and flagrantly lying way. On the other hand, it's about time we stop pretending Fox is really a news organization. Indeed, these days I just read Fox sometimes to see what's going on "on the other side" and what kind of crazy lies they're obsessing about now.
NYTimes article
NYTimes article
Asymmetric Warfare
I just saw a headline that quoted someone as saying "you've got nuclear bombs. we have suicide bombers."
Here's a poorly thought-out idea:
Is it possible that if Iran is allowed to have nuclear weapons, terrorism would stop?
Although on the other hand, as long as Afghanistan is politically, socially, and economically unstable, it seems unlikely for terrorism to stop so I don't know how much it really has to do with Iran.
Here's a poorly thought-out idea:
Is it possible that if Iran is allowed to have nuclear weapons, terrorism would stop?
Although on the other hand, as long as Afghanistan is politically, socially, and economically unstable, it seems unlikely for terrorism to stop so I don't know how much it really has to do with Iran.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Statement of Purpose
Here are some talking points I wrote up for describing my interests for graduate study. It's not very well-organized. I'd need to fix it up and get more specific about the technical details for a real statement of purpose.
There are many challenges facing the nation and the world today. The challenges need to be met within a further constraint of providing a high standard of living without depleting the very resources required to maintain a high standard of living. It seems that major changes are pending for a new economy based on new technology and infrastructure.
I'm interested broadly in prioritizing these challenges and prioritizing technology development or policy implementation. One possibility is that if people pursue their interests, the best and most effective ideas will meet each challenge as necessary. The market should be able to automatically prioritize correctly to invent pollution control methods and more efficient ways to use resources while rebuilding the economy and reforming healthcare.
On the other hand, if relative impacts, especially long term impacts, of potential innovations or policies could be quantized, it would be a very effective way to prioritize and meet challenges we face. I'm interested in finding ways to allocate intellectual resources and capital for the greatest gain.
Ideas can only be sorted by quality if the quality is correctly correlated with the price. However, social systems are interrelated and complex. It can be hard to gauge the effectiveness and thus value of a new technology because it can be hard to identify causal links, especially when there are delays in the system. Then it would be difficult for the market to prioritize effectively.
It would be best if each innovation was subjected to systems dynamics analysis to evaluate its potential and how well it integrates with other innovations and existing infrastructure. Solutions can be optimized to complement each other rather than inadvertently canceling out each other's intended effects.
I'm interested in technology and policy that can achieve an equilibrium in resource use. These new innovations and policies together may describe a new economic model that is not based on exponential capital growth. Alternatively, we may find that there is room for exponential growth that can still use resources sustainably.
6.241 Dynamic Systems and Control
I was talking to my power electronics professor today, and he mentioned the Dynamic Systems and Control course 6.241. I wish I took it as an undergrad. I didn't even see it. Oh well. I'm glad it's on OCW!
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
System Dynamics Group Publications
Actually, they are all by Jay Forrester. They are a good intro to system dynamics, though.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Demi-gods and Semi Devils
天龙八部1996 was this Chinese TV series I watched while in China when I was in middle school. Found a site that has it online. Whoo
Saturday, October 3, 2009
World Dynamics
Now I'm reading World Dynamics by Jay Forrester. He describes the model World3. I am thinking I should also read Industrial Dynamics and Urban Dynamics.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Mid Autumn Festival
tomorrow, Chinese people will be celebrating the Mid Autumn Festival ä¸ç§‹èŠ‚ by eating moon cakes 月饼. whooo. I will be eating lotus mooncakes whooooo.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Self Control and Education
Really good article about developing executive function for children.
I remember struggling with mind control tactics and I still have trouble with will power and concentration, although I know that what I can do already gets me very far.
I remember struggling with mind control tactics and I still have trouble with will power and concentration, although I know that what I can do already gets me very far.
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