About Jacob

I was born in San Francisco, California in 2000. I had a childhood as normal as one might expect, including attending Stuart Hall for Boys starting as a kindergartener in 2006. After the first year at Stuart Hall, it was evident that I loved studying math. In addition to the individualized enrichment in math provided by Stuart Hall, my parents arranged to add an accelerated math program to my "daily diet" through Stanford's Education Program for Gifted Youth (EPGY).

After completing first grade at Stuart Hall, my parents and I decided to pursue what many would consider homeschool, but was more an eclectic mix of external resources.

During that first year, I pursued a wide range of topics through several online programs, including EPGY, small group classes at local museums including the Exploratorium and the de Young, some private tutoring, and becoming a Davidson Young Scholar. This flexibility afforded some interesting facets to my education; for example, I was able to count on-foot urban exploration as my P.E. credit.

In 2009, I was the youngest member of the inaugural class of students in the new middle school program at the Stanford Online High School (OHS), while continuing my pursuit of other subjects in a range of programs as eclectic as before.

At OHS, I started with one class, Inquiry Based Physics. This class was my first introduction to physics and despite its removal from direct mathematics, I saw the dependencies, and was immediately transfixed. I followed this with AP Physics B in 2010-2011, receiving full scores on the AP Physics B and SAT Physics exams at age ten.

The following year, I continued my study of physics with some new resources at UC Berkeley. In the 2011-2012 academic year, I took two seminars and completed substantial independent study with the help of a graduate student in the department. The next year, I took the first two of the three Honors Freshman Physics series while continuing my independent studies.

In the summers of 2011 and 2012, I had the privilege of participating in the first two years of Epsilon Camp, which was, for me, an unparalleled community experience of young folks who shared my passion for mathematics.

During the second year I spent part-time at UC Berkeley, 2012-2013, I took a year of calculus courses at the College of Marin, my local community college. After realizing that I needed to start collecting formal credits for my coursework, I decided to enroll full-time at Marin for the 2013-2014 academic year using my California High School Proficiency Certificate (CHSPE) as the formal diploma required for full-time enrollment.

In 2013, I furthered my camp experiences with MathPath, and returned to Epsilon Camp as an assistant, helping out in the classroom and with program logistics.

I stayed at Marin full-time for two years, completing numerous physics, mathematics and general education courses, after which I applied to four University of California campuses for 2015 entrance with third-year standing.

Before heading off to my Bachelor's degree, I participated in the Modern Mathematics Summer School and the International Summer School for Young Physicists (ISSYP), in the summer of 2015, which were both amazing experiences of bringing a very diverse group of students together for two weeks of learning and community.

I was accepted to UCLA and UCSD for a Bachelor's of Science in physics, and in 2015, I started with the normal gamut of coursework expected of a transfer student in the physics department at UCLA. That first term at UCLA, I took on my first tutee, which helped me find my passion for teaching. Over the year, I took on numerous students as a tutees, ranging in age from seven to college-graduated adults, learning both physics and mathematics.

Early in 2017, I joined the Putterman Group as an undergraduate researcher, working in experimental plasma acoustics, which helped my interest in research flourish.

I used these experiences and my success as a student in the electronics and acoustics lab courses offered in the department to be the first current undergraduate to take an Assistant TA position, where I had over 60 students under my direct supervision over the 2017-2018 academic year.

In that same year, I co-founded Upsilon Lab, a research club in the Physics & Astronomy Department at UCLA, where I had indirect supervision over another 70 students.

Perhaps the greatest differentiator between myself and others who have followed a similar path is my professional experiences starting at age sixteen.

I started a corporate internship at AECOM in transportation planning, including infrastructure for autonomous vehicles, in 2016. Having been immersed in a professional environment from a young age has had its benefits in spades.

After graduating from UCLA, I took a full-time internship in research and development at the Palo Alto office of Ultrahaptics (now Ultraleap) in the summer of 2018.

I believe work experience of this nature is extremely valuable, and that age need not be a boundary for enrichment from such resources.

In 2018, I began my graduate work in physics at UC San Diego, where I enjoyed working Graduate Teaching Assistant, helping students of all skill levels better understand physics. In that year alone, I climbed the teaching ladder to Head TA of the upper division electronics lab, managing a team of seven other teaching assistants, with over 200 students over four quarters. Since then, I have managed the Physics Tutorial Center, and TA'd the first two quarters of the freshman Physics for Physics Majors course series.

Beginning in Summer 2019, I joined the Driscoll–Dubin–O'Neil Group, where I did experimental physics research on nonneutral plasma physics. Then, in Fall 2020, I moved to the Beg Group, where I did interdepartmental experimental and simulation physics research on high energy density plasma physics.