Computer Science and Engineering MSE | MS

I pursued research with Michigan faculty, who then went on to found the leading machine learning applied to healthcare startup in the Bay Area. I transitioned into the startup naturally during my graduate education at UoM.

Reflection on Time Spent at U-M

The opportunity to get involved in applied research really helped prepare me for problems in industry as well as the best ways to solve them. This to me was uniquely Michigan!

Since this article – https://news.engin.umich.edu/2017/05/eric-vander-weele-building-bloomberg-lp/, I have moved back to NYC in 2019 to where I continue to run the Python Infrastructure team and have taking on more responsibility to push forward new initiatives.

How does your Master’s degree differentiate you from others?

The skills I acquired and honed during my masters degree set me apart from my peers. Specifically, the critical analysis and thinking skills helped me differentiate sense from nonsense and to really decompose large complex problems/systems. I’ve learned that it is best to always fully understand the problem to its core before determining what the solution and strategy should be to solve it.

Advice to Students

I love running, Bikram yoga, and going to my family’s lake house in Michigan. I was a HKN and DKE fraternity member — my lifelong friends are still from these two organizations. My advice for students: Being able to differentiate sense from nonsense will give you the clarity to better understand the problem and discover the solution quicker. Also, no solution is perfect: Understand the trade-offs you are making and, more importantly, why you decided to make those trade-offs.

I moved from Ethiopia to Ann Arbor to attend the MS program at University of Michigan. Since I have a strong interest in the cross section of technology and the mental health space, I became a web developer for the Healthy Minds Network – a research team that works on adolescent mental health at the School of Public Health. Then I joined Menlo Innovations, a custom software development and organizational transformation company. We work across different domains and various technology stacks for projects.This requires finding solutions that are uniquely suited for each product’s particular context. The problem-solving skills I learned while working on research-based projects during my MS continue to help me approach such problems from various angles to find an optimal solution. 

Advice to Students

Some of my favorite experiences were participating in interdisciplinary programs. I tremendously enjoyed collaborating on a project focused on sustainability as part of the Dow Sustainability Fellows program, and taking cognate courses at the School of Social Work. UofM has many interdisciplinary opportunities and offerings. My advice is to take advantage of these opportunities in your areas of interest. I met great people who later helped me in my career trajectory through that route. 

I have been developing software professionally since 1979, where I concentrated mostly in UI and graphics. In 1986, I enrolled at U-M because there was a professor there I had always wanted to work with. Got my MS in Artificial Intelligence in 1988. Since then, I’ve had many jobs for which I was qualified without the Master’s. I’ve never used it professionally, but I’m very glad to have studied for it.

How does your Master’s degree differentiate you from others?

Looks great on paper!

Advice to Students

Do what you love, the money will follow.

My education as a computer science student at the University of Michigan has opened up numerous opportunities for me. During the summers following my sophomore and junior years, I interned at Microsoft as a software engineer. This provided me with valuable experience in working with large codebases and writing production-level code. However, I found that I wanted to work on projects that had more of an emphasis on exploring new methods and ideas. Therefore, my senior year I decided to get involved in research, and I joined the Computational Human Artificial Intelligence (CHAI) research lab led by Professor Emily Mower Provost. I’ve now been working in Emily’s lab for more than two years – first as an undergraduate, then while pursuing my master’s degree in computer science, and now as a full-time research assistant. My research experience has been incredibly rewarding and intellectually stimulating, and I have grown immensely from it. I’ve learned how to formulate interesting and relevant research questions, how to reason in the face of uncertainty and ambiguity, how to solve technically challenging problems, and how to present my work in a clear and engaging manner. My experience has also motivated my decision to pursue a PhD in computer science. I will start at MIT’s program next fall, and I feel confident that my educational experiences at Michigan have thoroughly prepared me to excel in this new role.

How does your Master’s degree differentiate you from others?

I think the primary way my master’s degree has helped me to differentiate myself is through the research experience I’ve gained and the connections I’ve built with professors throughout my time in the program. My master’s research experience was instrumental in enabling me to prepare strong essays for my PhD applications in that it gave me interesting and technically challenging research projects to discuss. My research experience also provided me with a much clearer understanding of what types of research projects would be interesting and meaningful to work on in the future, which helped me to articulate a compelling vision for future research directions. Additionally, I think that strong recommendation letters from esteemed faculty at the University of Michigan helped to differentiate me from other candidates applying. During my time as a master’s student, I made an effort to develop strong relationships with my research advisor and with the professors whose classes I took, so I had several faculty members who were happy to write me strong letters of recommendation for my application.

Advice to Students

My favorite student org that I joined as a master’s student is ECSEL+, a group focused on supporting women and gender minorities in CSE. The group organizes fun social events like movie nights and trips to different places around Ann Arbor, and I found that it was great way to make friends in CSE. My favorite graduate classes were Advanced Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning, and Advanced Data Mining. My advice to master’s students is to take advantage of the amazing community of students and faculty that you are a part of as a graduate student. By engaging with your peers and getting to know your professors, you can learn so much and build relationships that last far beyond your time as a student.

After graduation, I started my career as Design Engineer at AMD working on graphics and networking chips in the Bay Area. Joined a startup Nexgen Microsystems to design X86 microprocessors. I worked almost 20 years at Sun Microsystems working on SPARC microprocessors. I contributed to multiple projects at Sun and eventually got involved in impacting the industry by helping develop industry standards. Today, I work at the intersection of functional safety, cybersecurity and AI for autonomous vehicles.

How does your Master’s degree differentiate you from others?

The Master’s degree provided deeper knowledge in the emerging field of VLSI, Computer Systems, Hardware and Software. The broad but cutting edge curriculum provided a good foundation.

Advice to Students

I have always valued my Michigan education experience, the rigor, the broad course offering, hands on project/lab experiences, living in a college town community, Uno’s pizza, the shuttle bus ride between the two campuses, Michigan Union, the Football games and working/studying in the libraries.