Education

MIT

I finished my Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering (MSME) at MIT in February 2000 where my thesis was titled "Transient Thermal Recovery of a Pulsed BSCCO-2223 Superconducting Magnet." Dr Yukikazu Iwasa was my advisor and was generously able to provide some of his research funding to support my education.

BYU

I graduated from BYU in April 1998 with a BS. I double majored in Honors Applied Physics and Mathematics. I also graduated with University Honors in addition to my departmental Honors.

My post BYU plans were to attend graduate school in Mechanical Engineering. Deciding where to attend was difficult but I finally decided on MIT, located just outside of Boston.

Other schools that I applied to were:

I was accepted everywhere except Caltech. I had indicated on my application there that if there was not financial aid available I would not be able to attend. It also has a very small program in Engineering. I am pleased with the MIT decision. It is the number 1 rated graduate program in the country for engineering.

Undergraduate Research

I worked on my senior thesis project with Dr. Sommerfeldt doing numerical acoustic simulation. I used SYSNOISE and I-DEAS but it took a while to figure it out. The research was done in the summer of 1997 and I turned it into the Honors Department. I defended it later that spring. For more information see the section on papers I have written.

Cypress High School

Cypress is located in Orange County California, about 6 miles west of Disneyland. Cypress was never a school to particularly excel at sports but they had some excellent teachers and many good academic programs. My 4 years there were both fun and productive.

Elementary School

I moved around a lot. My mother taught school and so I tried to attend school in the district where she taught. The district I lived in wanted me at their school and so I made an almost yearly switch between the two districts. Aside from Kindergarten and first grade, I never attended the same school two years in a row until I reached High School.

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