What's Your StORy?

What has been your best INFORMS experience?
It was 2013 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Minneapolis. I received honorable mention in Best Student Presentation Competition from INFORMS Aviation Applications Section.

If you could choose anyone, who would you pick as your mentor?
Socrates. I resonate with Socrates that the best way for people to live is to focus on the pursuit of virtue rather than material wealth. He guarded his belief by accepting his death sentence and gave up the chance to run away. I admire him as a great and brave thinker.

If you had to work on only one project for the next year, what would it be?
I would like to analyze the difference in air traffic management (ATM) between the U.S. and China and identify ways to improve the ATM system in China.

What is something you learned in the last week?
I learned how to use Total Airspace and Airport Modeller (TAAM) as an intern at LeighFisher consulting firm. It is a fast-time gate-to-gate simulator of airport and airspace operations.

When I graduate, my perfect job would be...
The perfect job should let me do what I like, contribute the most, and make a difference. One good example is a faculty position. I enjoy identifying problems and exploring solutions through research. It is also awesome that you can keep pushing yourself beyond your limit in the process. As a professor, one may also cultivate more researchers and engineers through research supervision and classroom teaching.

What interest do you have outside of work that might surprise us?
This is probably not an interest but a skill: mental calculation. I started to practice abacus when I was in my second grade in primary school in China. After two years of training, I was able to do mental calculation. Even though I have not practiced after middle school, I could still multiple 4 digits by 4 digits. The side effect is that I am not very good at using a calculator.

What is the #1 most played song on your iPod?
I don’t have one!