PASSIONS
At my core, I am passionate about experiencing new things. I'm always on the lookout for something that will foster personal growth and bolster my understanding of the world.
COOKING AND FOOD
I was one of the lucky ones. My mother decided to take up cooking after growing up with my pasta-for-every meal grandma. My mother also happens to be friends with some absolutely fantastic chefs in the Pacific Northwest.
As a result, I grew to love good cooking. Venturing out on my own made me realize how little most people know about what makes good food so good. As a lifelong learner with high food standards, I am always seeking out improvements for my own cooking. I hope to infect others with my passion for food, and provide them with new knowledge to take their cooking to new heights.
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For me, cooking is about sharing a passion for making great things with great company. Always on the hunt for perfection, I don't settle for just what the recipe says. I relish in experimenting with ingredient proportions, cooking methods, and cook time to turn a dish into what I believe is the best version of itself.
Cooking is about bringing people of different backgrounds together to simply enjoy a shared experience.
TRAVEL AND CULTURE
Travel, to me, is an opportunity to explore new cultures, learn new things, and create new experiences. Travel is what allows me to be completely immersed in a way of life I don't get to witness, and that fuels my desire to see more.
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I believe that international travel, more than any other experience out there, helps us connect with each other in meaningful ways. Experiencing a new culture opens up our perspective, a characteristic that can easily get stuck if not consistently shaped. You have the ability to see something completely outside of your normal purview, discover new flavors and see how others around the world go about their own day-to-day lives.
Traveling to locations outside of America takes you back in time – where you realize that there are hundreds and thousands of moments that have already passed and seeing these locations is humbling. When you understand what others go through or have endured, it slowly integrates into your own way of life.
Traveling helps fills my insatiable curiosity – allowing me to learn as many new things that I can about a location, language, vocation or interest.
I’ve fallen in love with wine by traveling to Italy, gained a new taste for scotch by touring Scotland and uncovered new appreciation for matcha by exploring local tea houses in Japan.
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Traveling isn’t a fantastical as others make it seem – it’s dirty, tricky, exhausting and challenging – it's practice for the grit required to take on everyday challenges.
FUTURE TECH
"We can build a much brighter future where humans
are relieved of menial work using AI capabilities."
-Andrew Ng (Stanford Professor and AI Evangelist)
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I believe that we need to embrace future tech, not fear it. Here are some of the current future tech trends that I'm following.
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Quantum Computing – Quantum computing is destined to solve some big things, but there are some limitations. Why should you care about quantum computing? Well, Quantum computing will break encryption as we know it. Here’s a great video explaining the basics of how, using Shor’s algorithm, Quantum computers with 10^6 qbits would go about breaking all large factorization encryption as we know it .
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Machine Learning/Deep Learning – At this point, most people in the tech industry understand how much machine learning and deep learning has evolved over just a few years. I first learned about deep learning after attending HXGN Live 2017 and watching the keynote, where HXGN’s CEO showed how deep learning was being used to teach a computer to recognize a cat. There's lots of great implementations of machine and deep learning already in use, from IBM Watson to OpenAI's DOTA2 deep learning team
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Lab Grown Meat. – As you read above, I love food. That being said, there are very important reasons why people like me need an alternative to meat products. I’m really interested in the progression of lab grown meat. A few years ago, it cost over a million dollars to produce a single pound of lab grown meat, but as of 2019, estimates say that lab grown meat will cost about $50/lb. The next hurdle lab grown meat faces is the dreaded FDA regulation stage. As an alternative, you can see the staying power of meat-alternatives that nearly simulate meat, such as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat.
A lot of companies are afraid to implement new tech. The biggest contributors include large budget requirements, inadequate internal resources, and minimal executive buy-in.
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LEARNING
I approach learning as an opportunity to expand my understanding of the world. I learn as much as I need about a subject to give me the groundwork to make more informed decisions, or to enhance my ability to execute aspects of my life. My learning path extends forever, pushing me to stay curious about everything.
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In general, my passion for learning stems from four main motivations:
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1. Learning to better understand the world around me.
I do this through adventure and staying aware of my environment. I watch and learn from others, understanding their motivations, and how they communicate. I absorb that knowledge in order to continuously improve myself and my connection with the world.
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2. Learning to communicate better with the people I'm around most.
At AGC, I learned GD&T and SiC material science in order to speak with engineers. I learned PC-DMIS and Gage R&R to speak with our Dimensional Inspection team. I learned ERP and general system design to help implement solutions faster and more effectively with IT.
3. Learning to improve my workflow and spark innovation.
I’m always looking for ways to grow, and I often turn to tools to help speed up and improve my work. My love of future tech keeps me informed of how other companies are utilizing innovative technology, which provides me with the insights necessary to apply technology to my own workflow.
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4. Learning to share cool and interesting things with others.
Did you know, you can combine any edible liquid with sodium alginate and calcium lactate to create edible ‘spheres’? Does it make the food taste better? No. Is it cool? Definitely. Check it out for yourself on YouTube.