What did you do after graduating from Cal?
I did a summer internship at Disneyland’s Industrial Engineering department, which was a great experience to see how IEOR could be used in practice. I went to Cornell for my Masters in ORIE but wanted to come back to the bay after experiencing a cold Ithaca. I got a job as a Systems Engineer at Cisco after graduating and started at Google four years ago.

What is the most challenging part of your job?
Often times people will come to me with problems they need solved, and I have to prioritize as it fits into our engineering roadmap and resources. Saying no to people or proposals and influencing without authority are two challenging PM functions,
remembering we can’t please everyone as much as we would like to.

What was your favorite IEOR class and why?
The senior project with Professor Yano immensely influenced how I think about
problems and communicate with stakeholders. So much of my job now is translating user requirements into engineering ones, and being able to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences is an invaluable skill I learned from her. She’s also one of the most caring and invested professors I’ve ever had.

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