I was born on November 2, 1973 in Santa Monica, California. I lived there until just after my 2nd birthday. Then, my parents and I moved into the West San Fernando Valley, in what was then known as Canoga Park, but is now known as West Hills. (Nonetheless, it's all part of the city of Los Angeles. Most people who live in this part of the valley don't seem to be aware of it, but, even though we are 30 or so miles from downtown, we are still within the LA city limits. But I digress.)

Anyway, my sister Leah was born a few months later on July 2, 1976. She graduated from UCLA with a degree in English in June 1998.

I attended Sepulveda Jr. High and after graduating from Van Nuys High School in 1991, I went to UC Berkeley. I'm glad I went there. While there, I made many friends and became involved in a number of organizations.

During my freshman year, I joined the UC Rally Committee. I was quite active with Rally Committe that year and remained on Rally Comm for the remainder of my 4 years at UC Berkeley.

During my first year, I thought I might major in Math or Physics. I was always good at Math and Science and found them interesting. In fact, I got a perfect 800 on the Math part of the SAT.

Near the end of my 1st year, I realized that I needed to figure out what I wanted to major in. I talked to many people who offered me their advice. One of them was my friend Raymond, who I've known him since 7th grade at Sepulveda Jr. High. He was telling me I ought to consider Engineering as a major. I didn't know much about Engineering back then, but I had heard that it was difficult, so I was somewhat reluctant to major in it, but somehow I did choose Civil Engineering as my major.

I took some Civil Engineering classes my sophomore year and they were ok, but somehow I decided that I'd prefer Mechanical Engineering as a major. I think that this was in large part due to the influence of my friend Johnny, now a Mechanical Engineering grad student at UC Berkeley. So, I took some Mechanical Engineering classes my junior year and eventually declared it as my major. I became active in a number of engineering societies on campus during my final year at UC Berkeley. By my final semester, I was an officer of ASME and Tau Beta Pi, and a member of Pi Tau Sigma.

I was also an undergraduate research assistant for Professor J. Karl Hedrick during the summer of 1994 and for part of the 94/95 school year. I worked in the Vehicle Dynamics Lab with Chris Gerdes and Dragos Maciuca on Brake Control research for PATH. I am co-author of a paper that came out of this research. Click here to download.

When the time came for me to apply to graduate school, I had to decide which schools to apply to. My area of interest within Mechanical Engineering was Automatic Control, more specifically, vehicle dynamics and control, and the active control of buidlings under earthquake loads. I contacted about 30 schools and asked for applications and information. I talked to Professor Hedrick and asked him if he knew about any ongoing research dealing with the Control of buildings. He directed me to Professor Emeritis George Leitmann, who has done this type of research in the past. He recommended that I consider UC Irvine and contact Professor Schmitendorf there.

Many other people advised me that UC Santa Barbara had a very good program in Controls, though I never heard anything about vehicle dynamics and control, or the active control of buidlings under earthquake loads at UCSB.

I ended up applying to the following seven schools: UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, UCLA, UC Irvine, Stanford University, University of Michigan, and Georgia Tech all in their respective Mechanical Engineering departments. I mailed in my applications in December of 1994.

The first school I heard from was Georgia Tech. I got a call from Professor Wepfer in early to mid January of 1995. He invited me to come visit Georgia Tech at their expense. I told him that I was especially interested in meeting with Professor Chen, because one of his research topics was exactly what I was interested in: Active Control of buildings under earthquakes loads. He assured me that he'd arrange such a meeting.

So, I arranged to visit Georgia Tech in mid to late January. I visited the campus on a Friday and suffered from jetlag and so I was somewhat sleepy while I was there. The facilities there were very good and I think that Georgia Tech made the best effort overall in recruiting among all the schools I applied to. But, unfortunately, I did not get to meet Professor Chen. (I guess he was sick or something that day.) Overall, I didn't get the feeling that Georgia Tech was the place for me.

So, now I had 6 possibilities left. I received acceptances from UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara, in early February. I was invited to visit UCSB at their expense, and did so in mid-February. Professor Majumdar showed me around and introduced me to some faculty, including Professor Dahleh, Professor Paden, and Professor Yuen. Overall, I was very impressed with my visit and figured that there was a good chance I'd attend UCSB for graduate school.

Also in February, I was contacted by the Mechanical Engineering Department at UC Irvine and told that I was nominated for a Chancellor's Fellowship there, which I ended up getting. I told them that I wanted to visit and that I was interested in the research of Professor Schmitendorf and they said they would fly me down to visit the campus.

I visited UC Irvine in early March and met with Professor Schmitendorf and some other professors, including Professor Jabarri, both of whom are working on active control of buildings subject to earthquake excitation. It was a nice visit, but UC Irvine was somehow not as appealing to me as UCSB. The one thing that was far more appealing about UC Irvine was that Professor Schmitendorf made it clear that he wanted me to work for him and his research sounded very interesting. I did not have this at UCSB. But UCSB was somehow more appealing to me. I think a lot of it had to do with the reputation of the Center for Control Engineering and Computation at UCSB. In retrospect, this probably should not have been such a concern, but it all worked out for the best.

As for the other schools I applied to, well, I got into all of them. I got funding at all of them except Stanford, and the University of Michigan, so these two schools moved to the bottom of my list. Nonetheless, Michigan still seemed appealing to me, and I thought I should go visit the campus and meet some professors there. Maybe one of them would be able to get me funding.

I called the Department and they were not very helpful. I basically had to arrange meetings with the professors myself, and had to pay for and arrange my own accomidations and airfare. I went with a few other guys in the same predicament as me, Johnny Wu, Don Bromley, and another guy. We had a good time, but only Don ended up going to UMich for grad school.

I was admitted to UC Berkeley in early to mid-March. By this time, I had been admitted to all schools I applied to, except UCLA. So, I kinda omitted UCLA from the list, based on that. I finally got into UCLA in early April, but oh well, it was too little too late.

Anyway, I did receive funding at UC Berkeley, and with its reputation and its familiarity to me, it become one of my top choices. It was pretty much between UCSB, UCI, and UC Berkeley, with Michigan also slightly in the running.

Anyway, I kept wavering and I had trouble making a final decision. After visiting Michigan, I dropped by UCSB one more time to look around some more. After this, I decided that I was 90% sure I would go to UCSB. Less than a week later, in early April, the UC Berkeley Mechanical Engineering Dept had their visitors day. I had practically eliminated UC Berkeley from the running, but I figured I'd go to the visitors day just for the heck of it. Well, within about 24 hours or so, I changed my mind and decided that I wanted to stay at UC Berkeley for grad school. A week or so later, after wavering some more, I turned in the little card thing to the Dept saying that I was coming to UC Berkeley.

Well, not until late May did I receive a very pivotal phone call. Dr. Henry Yang of UCSB called me. He was looking for a new grad student. When I applied to UCSB, I didn't think there were any professors there doing any research on the active control of buildings under earthquake loads, but I mentioned that this was one of my interests in my application anyway. Well, Dr. Yang apparently came across my applicaton essay and decided to give me a call to see if I wanted to work under him.

My first reaction to this was "Oh no!, I have to make a decision again". In any case, I met with Dr. Yang and his post-doc Sai Ankireddi less than a week later. After about a week of thinking about it, the decision was not that difficult. One of the main reasons that I chose UC Berkeley over UCSB originally, was because I didn't know who I'd be working for or what I'd be working on at UCSB. Finding an advisor seemed like less of a problem at UC Berkeley. But now, I did not have this problem at UCSB and so I choose to go there for grad school.

And it was a good decision. I would not have known was I was missing had I stayed in Berkeley. Just the fact that Santa Barbara is a new place was a good thing. It's also a great location. In addition, Dr. Yang encouraged me to spend the summer of 1998 in Japan in the Summer Institute Program. It was a great experience for me.

And so that's pretty much the story of my life (up through 1998). Well, that's the story of my "professional" or "academic" life. My personal life is a lot more interesting; at least it is to me. But, if you want to know about that, well, you'll have to get to know me personally...