As the DoD's only independent cybersecurity assessment capability, the Defense Industrial Base Cybersecurity Assessment Center (DIBCAC) within DCMA holds our supply chain accountable to DFARS 252.204-7012, NIST SP 800-171, and the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC). This work is important due to the increasing threat of cyber attacks, and it's rewarding since I can collaborate with experts and learn different security architectures.I interview key personnel including CEOs, CISOs, IT directors, HR managers, and system administrators, and I also examine documentation and artifacts. With this, I can formally determine whether a company is compliant in areas including, but not limited to, system security planning, access control, risk management, configuration management, and system integrity.Awards:Individual Time Off Award (2023)Individual Cash Award (2023)

After working as a research engineer on DARPA, ARPA-E, and SBIR programs, I welcomed the opportunity to gain experience on the other side of program management. DCMA serves as the eyes and ears of the government in support of major programs. As a Functional Specialist, I contributed my engineering expertise with predictive analysis to keep the customer informed of any risks, issues, and opportunities, as well as impacts to budget, delivery schedule, and technical performance. I also planned and performed audits, risk assessments, and continuous risk monitoring to ensure compliance with contracts and federal acquisition regulations. This was especially rewarding as I worked to complete my cybersecurity degree, as I had the chance to actually apply what I was learning to major defense programs. I enjoyed extensive training opportunities through Defense Acquisition University, expanding my knowledge in topics including Program Management, Science & Technology Management, Systems Engineering, Agile Software Development, and Lean Six Sigma. I also began my participation in the first cohort of the DCMA Emerging Leaders Program, which has helped me cultivate the qualities necessary for me to be the leader that a younger version of me needed.Awards:Self Development Award (2021)Individual Time Off Award (2021, 2022)Individual Cash Award (2021, 2022)

Following my short stint as a jazz nomad, I partnered with a small business, a printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturer, to envision new products. Specifically, I research printable inks and design simple circuit prototypes to demonstrate manufacturability.

After Esalen, I wanted to build courage by traveling abroad by myself in Asia. I stumbled upon a jazz bar in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and the musicians there inspired me to acquire a travel trumpet so I could join in on their jam night. "When I'm tired of carrying it around," I said, "I'll just sell it." I did not sell it. I took that trumpet with me everywhere I went, stopping by jazz bars in cities like Bangkok, Hanoi, and Seoul before I eventually returned to my home in the US.

After completing the Science Communication elective at UC Irvine, I jumped at the opportunity to continue working with the instructor and fellow Caltech alum, Sandra Tsing Loh. Sandra hosts the Loh Down on Science, a short-form radio program on KPCC (89.3 FM for you Los Angelinos). As a contributing writer, I digested recent research breakthroughs and distilled them into fun 90-second stories. Below you will find some of my contributions, which include research in biology, chemistry, and engineering. I encourage you to listen to Sandra recite them as she is an artist who enraptures listeners with her engaging narration. Her delivery for each one draws me in and blows me away--and I'm the one who wrote them!

Have you ever needed to take a break from your Sanksaras to relearn what it means to be a human? I participated in a workshop, Lean Permaculture and Sustainable Design. It was unlike any learning environment I had ever experienced, mainly due to Open Space Technology. One of the intentions of the course was to expand the definition of permaculture beyond merely agriculture--permanent culture. Can we design a permanent culture, one that will prove resilient under the most disruptive circumstances? Coming out of grad school, where I aimed to replicate biomaterials, I appreciated the inherent, unparalleled resiliency of nature. Design is not a straight line run to the finish line. Design takes iterative progress, sometimes backtracking, and a lot of trial-and-error, finishing with communication and sharing knowledge. This experience drove home in me that design inspired by nature is the best approach. Life has been iteratively optimizing builds for 2 billion years. If we can learn as much as we can from nature, much like the ancients did at the dawn of agriculture, then we certainly can engineer sustainability and resiliency into every facet of our lives. As part of my work study commitment, I joined the Esalen Cabins Crew. This was a great team of people to work with, and I received extra leadership training from one of the institute's managers. From this, I gained a deeper appreciation for my powerful imagination, greater awareness and sense of self, and a framework on how to continuously grow into my potential. It was a heart-opening experience that shifted my perspective in a positive direction.

Experienced in building and testing organic devices, I joined the Gorodetsky Group at UC Irvine. There, I spent my first year building and testing transistors using in-house materials. None of them worked. That's science for you!Meanwhile, I learned a lot about polymers, composites, proteins, and more. I grew squid skin proteins in bacteria. I measured proton transport through the proteins and I saw them change color. I loved macrobiology since I was a kid, so I shared my advisor's passion when he decided to pivot to biomaterials and bio-inspired materials. I worked on the latter in two key projects.In one project, funded by DARPA, I leveraged the skills I acquired building solar cells to now build hair-thin polymer films. Available in 3 iridescent colors by design, they replicated the internal structures of the squid/octopus skin. See the video below for more background (btw, I'm very disappointed that the Amazon Prime Wheel of Time series does not feature the warder cloak at all)In another project, funded by ARPA-E, I joined a small team of a physicist, a mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer, a chemist, and a chemical engineer. We invented a mechanically-activated thermal composite material, a stretchable space blanket. We collaborated with a pair of textiles engineers at Under Armour to validate our material for use in athleticwear. I spent the first half of this $2.4M program experimenting and optimizing material design with my team. During the second half, I individually focused more on communicating the value of our invention. I compiled a pitch deck for potential investors, and I attended conferences and trade shows to showcase our proof-of-concept in live demos. Textile designers and advanced manufacturing firms were intrigued as my hand disappeared and reappeared under a thermal camera. I also helped to protect our intellectual property, working with the UC Irvine Applied Innovation Group to file a provisional patent application.

I TA'd for my graduate advisor, who taught the first-year course Chemistry for Engineers. I led multiple discussions, wrote exams, and graded. To make the material more interesting to the 250+ students enrolled, I highlighted how chemistry concepts apply to electrical, mechanical, and biomedical engineering.

After graduating from Caltech, I wanted more hands-on experience building and testing solid-state devices. I also wanted to do my part in the fight against climate change. At Next Energy, I got to do both!Next Energy Technologies develops organic solar cells. Instead of silicon crystals, small carbon molecules convert light into electricity. Think your phone's OLED screen but in reverse. The biggest advantage is that carbon can go where silicon can't: inks, curves, flexible panels, and most importantly windows. I made devices at different transparencies, all with decent efficiencies. There was just one problem...The toughest obstacle for cheap, printable carbon-based solar: lifetime/reliability. When I joined Next, the devices were pretty much one and done, dead within the hour. I iteratively designed experiments and optimized different variables, everything from the way we handled the devices to what materials we put inside them. I even challenged a paper from the UK, finding that their conclusions were not reproducible in our lab.My efforts culminated in a breakthrough. Encapsulated devices under 24/7 sunlight exhibited almost no degradation--more than 100x lifetime improvement! After validating this finding through subsequent experiments, I delivered data that helped secure $1M in SBIR Phase II funding from the Department of Energy Sunshot Initiative. With the most significant technical hurdle out of the way, the startup secured Series A funding and began scale-up. I felt like I could use a scale-up myself. I decided to return to school and learn more deeply about organic materials and their dizzyingly wide applications.

As an intern at HRL, I learned how to work a liquid helium cryostat and superconducting magnet. With this setup, I characterized two-dimensional electronic devices using low temperature Hall measurement. This was a challenge because at low temperatures (-270C or -453F) the smallest static discharge can ruin an experiment.I learned to program in Igor Pro to communicate between commercial off-the-shelf equipment and in-house developed software. I added automated test functions and statistical calculation of material properties, improving the reliability and speed of measurement.

As a SURF student, I simulated the life and death of massive early-universe stars to understand a rare type of explosion, the pair-instability supernova. Because the Fortran simulation code was not designed for these models, it crashed frequently--especially when the star was just about to explode! I taught myself Python to help parse the data for errors and debug the simulation code. I also used Python to visualize the internal physics, and I learned Linux shell scripting to speed things up. At the end of the summer, I communicated the results of my experiments to faculty in peers in both written and oral presentation formats.