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| Staff Mini-Biography: Justin |
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WHERE DID YOU GROW UP?  WHAT WAS YOUR ACADEMIC PATH?

Until 2016, I lived my entire life in various parts of the Bay Area (California).

UC Berkeley lifer:
- B.S. in MechE & EECS
- 1 year working at Lockheed Martin
- M.S. in EECS
- Ph.D. in EECS
- 1 year joint postdoc and lecturer appointment

Now a CSE Lecturer at UW!  =)


WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST EXPOSURE TO COMPUTER SCIENCE?

Back in jr. high (7th grade?), I was lucky enough to have a TI-83 Plus graphing calculator.
They came with these transfer cables and students were passing around some programs that
were pretty much all either games or for math class.

Some of them had visible source code, so after digging through some of them, I started
experimenting in writing some of my own.  At first, it was just additional math functions,
but the nice thing about graphing calculators is that they have built-in functions for
drawing on the graphing screen.  Eventually, I was able to recreate a graphical blackjack
card game!  My version was way slower than the closed-source program I had gotten from
elsewhere, but I was still super proud of myself, had learned a lot, and had fun with it!


WHAT GETS YOU MOST EXCITED ABOUT COMPUTER SCIENCE?

I love that it is an enabling skill that can be applied to pretty much any facet of life.
You better believe there are drawbacks (learn about some of them in this class!), but CS
still has the potential to improve lives and quite literally transform ideas and dreams
into reality!

As a CS educator, I love being able to pass on both excitement and skills to my students
that they can apply to projects and applications in the future that I couldn't even
imagine myself!


WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR HOBBIES, TALENTS, AND SKILLS?

Ultimate Frisbee
Running
Board Games
Hiking/Camping/Backpacking
Singing (a cappella)

I am decently dexterous with my left hand (use chopsticks and throw a Frisbee).

I can solve a few variants of the Rubik's Cube (I am NOT a speedcuber).


HAVE YOU DONE ANYTHING REMARKABLE?  HAS ANYTHING MEMORABLE HAPPENED TO YOU?

So I have this story that involves kayaking, sea lions, a long night on a rock
beach, a helicopter, and the coast guard... =P 

I once ran a marathon.  It sucked.

I have been to every national park in CA (8) -- time for WA?


WHAT COMMITMENTS WILL BE CONSUMING YOUR TIME THIS QUARTER?

Teaching CSE120 & CSE369
UW in the High School (uwhs.uw.edu) for CSE120
DiscNW Verns League & Spring Team League (ultimate)