In short, I am an engineer who is the product of numbers and sports. I graduated in 2020 with a master's degree in
Financial Engineering from the University of Southern California, where I previously earned a bachelor's in
Mechanical Engineering and a minor in Sports Media Studies. As you can probably guess, my degrees only tell part of
the story.
My parents put me in Little League baseball when I was six years old. I began developing my talents as the scrawny
southpaw who had tremendous respect for the game. While I continued playing first base and hitting somewhere between
seventh and thirteenth in the lineup, I began collecting baseball cards. Over the years, I had accrued more than two
full binders of cards separated by league and organized by team and last name. This library of past and present
baseball sparked my obsession with the sport. Throughout middle school, I would watch MLB Network's recap show
Quick Pitch every morning and all-time ranking show Prime 9 in the afternoon. My baseball trivia
knowledge was growing, for I was addicted to the sport.
In 2008, I embarked on a journey that challenged me both mentally and physically: running the Los Angeles Marathon.
As a sixth-grade student at the time, I would train after school and on weekends to prepare for the daunting 26.2
miles. After putting in over 800 miles in eight months, I completed the LA Marathon on May 25, 2009. I apparently
had such a fun time doing it that I trained and completed it again in 2010, the first year of the “Stadium to the
Sea” route.
I realized that being a high school first baseman was not my calling, so I tried out for the Dana Hills cross country
team. I had to convert my marathon endurance to finishing three miles in under twenty minutes just to be on the
team. After daily training over the summer, I made the team and continued to improve as a cross-country runner. I
finally hit a personal best 17:19 for three miles as a sophomore and graduated with the third-best team in the
nation.
I took my talents to Los Angeles to study engineering and become captivated by the world of college football. I
followed this new passion by working for the USC Sports Information Office. Here I learned more about USC sports and
provided data analytics assistance, most notably at Men's Basketball and Women's Beach Volleyball games. After
pulling all-nighters every week during my junior year, I realized I wanted to continue being a student at USC. This
led me to pursue a master's in financial engineering, where I applied my mathematical knowledge and analytics
background from mechanical engineering to the world of finance. At the same time, I worked on the recruiting side of
USC Football and further expanded my knowledge of analytics while also providing impactful work for the department.
To summarize, my education, work experience, and passions have contributed significantly to my personality and have
developed me into a man with strong character, obscure knowledge, and a growth mindset.