Hi There! I'm Derek. Here are some highlights of my life:
Engineering/Tech
- Graduate student in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley (Machine Learning)
- Received bachelor's with Highest Distinction (summa cum laude) from UC Berkeley in computer science
- 2019-2020 recipient of the EECS Distinguished GSI Award (top instructor out of ~700 in the department)
- Third author on IOVS conference publication "ReVAS: An open-source tool for eye motion extraction from retinal videos obtained with scanning laser ophthalmoscopy"
- Third author on pending journal manuscript "ReVAS: A modular eye motion extraction and analysis suite for scanning laser ophthalmoscopy"
- 2018 SURF Rose Hills Research Fellow
- World Finalist in the 2018 Microsoft Imagine Cup
- Worked on a patented NLP engine at ThoughtSpot in 2019
- Current software engineer with DocuSign's storage / infrastructure team
Humanities/Natural Sciences
- Ex-Neurobiology major at UC Berkeley
- One of 33 winners of the international 2015 DuPont Challenge essay contest
- National semifinalist in the 2015 USABO (ranked among the top 500 students in the US)
- Worked with Dr. Deborah Dean to develop a low-cost diagnostic tool for Neisseria gonorrhoeae
- Second author on CBRS 2019 conference publication: “Global diversity of the Chlamydia trachomatis tryptophan operon reveals evolutionary trends among ocular, urogenital and rectal strains”
- Acknowledged contributor on mBIO 2019 publication: "Clinical Persistence of Chlamydia trachomatis Sexually Transmitted Strains Involves Novel Mutations in the Functional αββα Tetramer of the Tryptophan Synthase Operon"
Athletics (swimming)
- Finalist at the 2015 American Short Course Championships
- Swam in the same pool as Michael Phelps in Texas
- Overall third place finisher in the 2014 Navy SEAL Challenge as a 16-year-old.
- 2x CIF Champion in swimming
- Represented America at the 2010 North American Challenge Cup
- Represented America at the 2011 Pacific Coast All Stars
- One of the fastest swimmers in the country for the 2009-2010 season. Selected national age group rankings: 100 back (25th), 50 free (16th), 100 free (21st), 200 breast (25th)
Random
- 2008: I have a swimming accident, and as a result I can now wiggle my ears.
- 2010: Swimming accident #2 leaves me with a scar across my heart. It is often mistaken for a bullet wound.
- 2012: I set the world record in Penguin Blast.
- 2015: I touch Michael Phelps' foot in the warmup pool at ASCC.
- 2019: I find a family of raccoons while walking with friends: http://bit.ly/GG_Raccoons
- 2019: I start to like cats after I meet this handsome fellow: bit.ly/chickenSoupCat
- 2019: I meet Craig Federighi at an alumni event, and he autographs my phone! bit.ly/federighi
- 2020: I achieve 126 WPM/566 CPM typing speed (100% accuracy).
What I love to do
Learn
I am a Master's student at UC Berkeley exploring the intersection between privacy, ML, and efficiency.
Research
I research efficient, greedy, and data-free machine learning techniques.
Teach
The people and moments that mean the most to me are all tied to the Computer Science teaching community at Berkeley.
Create
I am an amateur MagicaVoxel artist and sculpt movie scenes in voxel art.
Derek is an incredible TA, I can tell he genuinely cares about our success and loves teaching. If he can't figure out a problem while he's with a student, he emails them with a follow up furthering explanations or solutions, which I find extremely helpful. He really goes above and beyond for his students.
Anonymous student feedback | CS61A | Spring 2018
He explains things well and makes himself very approachable. I can tell he's very invested in his students, even just from the attendance surveys. I feel like I'm in good hands.
Anonymous student feedback | CS61A | Summer 2018
Derek is the best GSI I've ever had at Berkeley. Smart guy, same age as me, can connect with easily.
Anonymous student feedback | CS61A | Spring 2018
Derek was very caring and sometimes stayed after class if we still had any questions left. I enjoyed his discussion sessions whenever I attended them.
Anonymous student feedback | CS61A | Spring 2018
Bring[s] in extra, interesting material, provid[es] relevant outside questions about past midterms... He is doing everything great.
Anonymous student feedback | CS61A | Fall 2017
Personal Endeavors
Here are some interesting things I've worked on over the years.
I built a game for Bit By Bit, which focuses on children's Compuer Science education in underserved communities.
Another game for Bit By Bit, although it's still in progress! Fight off a horde of never-ending flyer-ers on Sproul Plaza!
I play around with voxel models to pass the time. Click the image above for all my models and professional prints.
I wrote and compiled course notes for Chem 3A: Chemical Structure and Reactivity (with Professor Kurt Vollhardt).
I wrote and compiled course notes for Chem 1A: General Chemistry (with Professor Martin Head-Gordon).
As a uGSI for Computer Science 61A, I record exam walkthroughs for other undergraduate students in the class.
I built an app that extracts eye motion from scanning laser ophthalmoscope videos with Dr. Mehmet Agaoglu.
I am the second author on a CBRS 2019 conference abstract which discusses recent findings regarding the trpRBA genes of clinical Chlamydia strains
I wrote and compiled course notes for the plasticity module of MCB 160: Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology (with Professor Helen Bateup).
I built a simulated Argentinian strategy game, including minimax AI bots that can force wins within a dozen moves
Organized the first project fair for CS 61A, one of UC Berkeley's core undergraduate computer science courses. We saw ~60 teams present projects.
A lightweight voice assistant and web scraper to look up facility hours.
NLP team at ThoughtSpot. Scaled testing and classification services to 80,000 tests
3D game in development.
I wrote and compiled course notes for the genetics module of MCB 102 (with Professor Nicholas Ingolia).