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 studying federated learning. Previously I studied Computer Science and Biology as an undergrad.
Research
I explore vision science, Chlamydia genetics, stenosis, and efficient machine learning research.
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).