I am currently a PhD student at UCSB's Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. I am also extremely grateful to be part of a Bioengineering Fellowship for pre-doctoral students at UCSB that focuses on data driven biology.
Before PhD, I was a lowly undergrad studying Applied Statistics and Minoring in English. Afterwards, I became a software engineer and spent five years rebuilding a machine learning platform for massive scale image and video processing.
Research
My research focuses on computer vision and deep learning, and building large scale software systems specifically for image and video processing.
Why PhD
Yeah, I know, I now ask myself this same question. The reason is I get to study a very specific topic that I am interested in for several years and become the absolute best expert in that niche area.
Should you go for PhD
I always receive LinkedIn messages from incredibly smart students asking why I decided to go for a PhD, what's it like, and if they should get one as well. My answer always starts with "Don't go in it for the money and don't go into it thinking its anything like your undergrad or masters." Pursue a PhD after finding a problem you are interested in. This may be years after undergrad or masters.
This question is also, partially, my motivation for starting this website—for you to get an inside look into PhD life and what you should know before applying. The information presented may be more tailored for people in AI, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Bioengineering, Computer Science, and anyone else who desires to have a paper in CVPR.
GitHub
I have worked on several open-source projects and have published in journals such as Frontiers and Nature.
