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- So to provide a little bit of background on myself,
my parents were born and raised in Mexico,
in the state of Michoacan,
and they migrated both when there were teenagers.
My dad came on his own.
My mom came with her family.
And they met here in the US, in Wilmington,
which is a neighborhood in LA County.
And growing up there,
I grew up with two older sisters, one older brother,
then it's me, and two younger brothers.
So a family of six.
And we're part of much larger family.
We grew up very close to my mom's family.
She has nine,
they're nine, she has eight siblings.
And grew up very closely with cousins
in a much highly Mexican neighborhood.
So grew up
with a lot of culture,
and exposure to Mexican traditions,
and even going back to Mexico,
I got to eat a lot of the same food,
and celebrated a lot of the same events.
But my parents were...
Both being immigrants, had very little education.
My father I think, went through some elementary school.
My mother went through some middle school
before they had to work, or help at home with the family.
And they had some pretty tough jobs.
So growing up,
I think both my parents displayed a very hard work ethic,
and despite not having a whole lot of education,
in particular my mom,
placed a lot of emphasis in our schooling.
And this was for all my siblings.
She really pushed us hard when we wouldn't do in school.
She would get a lot of discipline
and really made it,
provided a lot of incentives for us to do well in school.
Then going into...
When I was going into, say,
even through, well throughout my school,
including through high school,
I can't say I was ever one of the top students.
I mean, I tried to do well.
There wasn't a big motivation to go all out for school,
especially in the neighborhood where I grew up,
but I did overall fairly well,
especially like in math and science classes,
and that's probably because I enjoyed,
I liked math,
and to some extent I was able to understand it.
Growing up in that area in Wilmington,
the schools are not...
I think the schools are perhaps known more
for the number of students that drop out
than the number of students that go on to universities.
But I had the fortunate experience
of having older siblings that went on to college,
especially starting with my older sister,
who went to UC Irvine and kind of set a pathway for us
to start thinking about college,
and getting us in a little bit in the college mindset.
But it still wasn't like a for sure thing.
I think that kind of set a path for us.
So when I finished high school,
obviously I applied to some universities,
mostly around the LA area.
I did apply to UC Irvine,
where my sister had went and got in.
It was the only UC that I applied to,
and my sister had gone there.
She was a few years older, she had graduated,
and my brother was actually a student there.
So I decided to go to UC Irvine
to start my college experience.
My first year in college was a little bit...
I will say it was a little bit rough,
and from many perspectives, one is,
just the level of preparation you get
in an urban high school,
it's not to par with what other students might be seeing.
And it's actually something
I'm experiencing first time now,
when I see my children, the schools they're going to,
and the type of curriculum that they're engaging in.
So it was a challenge,
but I think what really made a difference for me
was that first year before I started
I was involved in the summer program.
I was involved in the camp,
The California Alliance for Minority Participation
at Irvine.
It was one of the first years that it started,
and I believe the program is still around.
We even had a couple even here in UC San Diego.
And it really helped with the transition
into the university.
It was a core group, it was dedicated to STEM.
So it was a core group of students,
a lot from similar communities to where I came from,
to get us a kind of an introduction to college
and bring us up to speed a little bit.
And so that was my experience in meeting
a lot of different college students.
And it was also because of the STEM program,
I got to meet a lot of engineering students,
a lot of students from different areas.
I went into Irvine as a math major.
I had no idea why. I just said,
"Well, I'm doing good at math, I'll do math."
Then talking to some of the students
during the summer there, some of the mentors,
some of the upper classmen
the junior, seniors, who were mentoring us
I got to learn a lot more about engineering.
And that's just sounded a lot more interesting,
it's actually using math and science
and applying it to solve practical problems.
So I decided to switch my major to engineering
but later on I didn't have any idea
about what different engineering fields were.
So actually I decided to go into civil engineering
and I think that's probably to some extent
because most of the students I talked to
were doing civil engineering and focusing on structures.
So designing buildings, bridges,
and other types of structures.
I think this camp program
really got me introduced into the concept
of what happens at a research university,
what is research and so forth.
And it introduced me to this concept of research.
We had a lot of talks from different professors
that would talk about the work that we're doing
but what really was a turning point for me,
I think in changing my pathway
at UC Irvine was mentorship.
I struggled a lot my first year or two
at UC Irvine with classes
and just general lack of interest.
I was studying, it was very challenging.
My sophomore year I had the opportunity
to meet Roberto Villaverde,
Professor in civil engineering
who was my academic advisor.
I had to go see him.
I was forced to see him so he could sign off on my classes
and I would ask him about research
every time I would see him.
Finally he gave me an opportunity to work on some coding.
And I guess I did a decent job
that he then invited me to join another research project
in the lab where I got to do experiments.
This changed my path in many ways.
And one is having a mentor,
someone I could talk to about what is engineering?
What are the possibilities of different realms we could do?
But also being introduced into the laboratory
and being able to do experiments
in structural engineering, in earthquake engineering
where we would essentially be making models of buildings,
breaking them, we shake them with a shake table.
To me, it was very much like a hobby.
The other thing that he did
is that he got me much more interested
in understanding what I was seeing in the lab
and that was then being explained through my classes.
So it had a huge impact of increasing my interest
in the theories and everything
I was learning in the classes.
And then that led me to doing a lot much better
in my coursework.
If I consider for example, my first two years,
especially my first year at UCI
where I was just getting by
to later in my junior and senior year
after having this research experience,
I was recognized by a lot of professors
as one of the top students in the program.
Another big impact that the mentorship had, this is...
That had on me and having a research advisor
and a research mentor as an undergrad was that,
well my mentor, Roberto Villaverde
encouraged me to go to grad school,
something I hadn't really thought of.
He encouraged me to go for master's
but also consider a doctorate, a PhD in engineering.
And so with this guidance I applied to several grad schools,
actually, I got in I think, most schools I applied to.
A lot of them top schools
and I ended up going to MIT for my masters.
It was a very interesting experience there.
I got to meet some amazing people, very bright individuals.
And I completed my master's there
with the thesis.
But one thing I did miss was doing the experimental work.
I miss being in the lab, being hands-on.
MIT especially in the area of structures
is more of an analytical school.
So at that time, I decided to apply,
I wanted to continue studying
and all this time keeping in contact
with my mentor
I decided to apply to UC Berkeley,
which at the time had the largest earthquake simulator
essentially an earthquake shake table
with larger models, buildings
and shake them on the shake table.
So I went to UC Berkeley,
I think I was very fortunate
to actually have the opportunity
to work on experiments on the shake table
and many other types of experiments there
that then further increased my interest in research
and then when I was close to finishing up
I started to consider careers
as a professor in academics.
Following my undergraduate research experience.
And in going through graduate school
my research experience is really centered on
structural and earthquake engineering.
How do we design buildings to better resist earthquakes?
When I started, even as an undergraduate student,
I was in the lab
making models of buildings
and putting rubber devices,
putting dampers or essentially shock absorbers
in the building
to see how they will reduce the response to earthquakes.
And that's very similar to the work I'm still doing now.
I look at mainly applying seismic isolation
in buildings,
a way of putting the bearing on sliding bearings
or rubber bearings
that limit the amount of shaking, as the ground shakes.
They limit the amount of shaking
that is transferred up to the building,
and it helps to protect it from earthquake damage.
And some advice for students pursuing STEM,
I would say is, it is a lot of work first of all,
I mean, it's not gonna come easy,
but if it's something you enjoy doing
it's not gonna seem like a lot of work.
So I would say try a lot of different things
try a lot of...
Explore different options in engineering
and see what really peaks your interest
and pursue that.
It's something that I feel like
I think in order to be successful
at something that you do
well, one you really gotta like what you're doing
to be able to put the effort into it.
I think if you're good at it
you're gonna enjoy it even more.
So it takes really a lot of hard work.
I mean, it took a lot of hard work
to get to the point where I was able to understand
and be able to stand out in my classes
especially coming from a very low level of preparation.
So yeah, I would say,
probably one of the most important things
to be very successful at what you do
is to enjoy what you're doing.
Yeah it is gonna take a lot of work.
If you put in that hard work now,
it could lead to much more opportunities in the future.
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