Aaron McPherson: Staff

Aaron McPherson, senior department manager, applied mathematics and statistics

Graduate Institution: Bowling Green State University, College Student Personnel, M.A.
Departments: Applied Mathematics and Statistics

“Coming from previous positions where I worked almost completely independently, the level of collaboration is one of the things I really enjoy about my department manager role.”

Haofan Cai: Alumna

Haofan Cai, Ph.D. alumna

Degree Program: Computer Science and Engineering, Ph.D.
Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Undergraduate Institution: Southern University of Science and Technology, China, Communications Engineering, B.S.
Advisor: Chen Qian

“The most important thing is to have confidence in yourself. Although you will encounter many challenges and become frustrated at times during your program, you need to remain confident in your capabilities as an engineer.”

Anuj Kumar: Alumnus

Anuj Kumar, Ph.D. applied mathematics alumnus

Degree Program: Applied Mathematics, Ph.D.
Department: Applied Mathematics
Undergraduate Institution:Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur, Mechanical Engineering, B.S.
Graduate Institution: Indian Institute of Technology, Bangalore, Mechanical Engineering, M.S.
Advisor: Pascale Garaud

“One of the best parts of my research is getting to blend different interdisciplinary concepts together like math, engineering, and physics and collaborate with different researchers across different fields.”

Joseph Cruz: Alumnus

Joseph Cruz, alumnus

Degree Program: Biomolecular Engineering and Bioinformatics, B.S.
Department: Biomolecular Engineering
Hometown: Pomona, CA

“The thing I’ll miss most is working in Professor Rebecca DuBois’s Lab. I’m grateful for all the support and encouragement I received while conducting research in her lab.”

Alec Dektor: Alumnus

Alec Dektor

Degree Program: Applied Mathematics, Ph.D.
Department: Applied Mathematics
Undergraduate Institution: UC Santa Cruz
Graduate Institution: UC Santa Cruz
Advisor: Daniele Venturi

“As a researcher, I am constantly trying to think of new ideas. Most of them take a lot of effort to explore and oftentimes they do not work. One day, I decided to carry out an idea that had popped into my head. I quickly coded it into my computer and pressed “run.” I sat there and watched the animations appear on the screen, proving that my new idea worked even better than I had anticipated. It was such a good feeling to achieve this research breakthrough from an original idea.”

Abigail Kaun: Staff

Abigail Kaun

Department: Baskin Engineering Dean’s Office
Graduate Institution: UCLA, Linguistics, Ph.D.
Undergraduate Institution: UCSB, Linguistics, B.A.

“I’ve worked with students my whole career, in all sorts of settings and with all sorts of objectives in life, but I have never worked with students who were more creative, collaborative, and dedicated than the engineering students at UC Santa Cruz.”

Sammy Tesfai: Undergraduate Student

Sammy Tesfai

Degree Program: Computer Engineering, B.S.
Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Hometown: Santa Rosa, CA

“What I like best about being an engineering major would be the amount of flexibility we are given to express our creativity into creating solutions to problems individuals can use in the real world.”

Noopur Raval: Postdoctoral Researcher

Noopur Raval: Postdoctoral Researcher

Graduate Institution: Jawaharlal Nehru University, Cinema Studies, M.Phil., Arts & Aesthetics, M.A.; UC Irvine, Informatics, Ph.D.
Undergraduate Institution: Christ University, (3 majors) Media Studies, English Literature, and Psychology, B.A.
Advisor: Norman Su
Department: Computational Media

“It’s important to learn by doing, take chances, and grow from those individual experiences.”