DARPA, focused at the time on accelerating the process of hardware circuit verification for
analog, digital, and mixed-signal designs. Aside from working on the user interface—a Java
program using Swing—I found that this work was also a huge opportunity to grow and learn how
to maintain Linux systems, networks, and services on the network, as well as secure remote
services and enable remote productivity for the employees there. I also found working with
Professor Xu to be highly inspiring; he is an incredibly dynamic individual who is genuinely
passionate about transforming the industry. It was enlightening to accompanying him at industry
conferences, in meetings with DARPA, and on phone calls with major customers, as well as see
him make the case for his product’s relevance while also translating their needs into technical
requirements that I helped implement. I gained invaluable insight into how entrepreneurship
works in the industry, which I believe will serve me greatly down the line.
More recently, I was hired by George Will’s International Software, where I worked
(sometimes with George himself, amazingly) on prototyping innovative concepts for future
productivity software using his company’s International Software Platform, a framework for
developing groupware-enabled software, among other things. This program had the dual purpose
of helping to showcase the platform’s capabilities and helping to drive the development of it. We
were eventually acquired by Amazon, where my role has shifted to infrastructure and porting our
organization’s main product to web and mobile, which has been a great opportunity to learn new
technologies and technology ecosystems.
Overall, the curiosity, drive, and dynamism I have exhibited academically and
professionally are reflective of my ability to rise to the challenges of a PhD candidate in
computer science at Target University. I believe Target University is the ideal educational
environment for me for various reasons. One reason is its impressive history of pioneering
