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Meet the Siebel Scholars

Vikram AggarwalJohns Hopkins University, Bioengineering, Class of 2011

By day, Vikram Aggarwal is figuring out how to translate brain signals into control of an upper-limb prosthesis. When he leaves the lab, his focus turns to the medical device startup he co-founded to measure central venous pressure in a non-invasive manner.

As a Ph.D. candidate in Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, Vikram’s neuroengineering research is funded by a $30 million grant from DARPA. This grant tasked several universities with developing a fully neurally controlled upper-limb prosthesis that functions like a regular arm, with signals from the brain controlling the limb using thought alone. Vikram’s work focuses on developing the algorithms that translate the brain’s neural activity to direct control of the hand and fingers of the mechanical arm.

While he enjoys cutting-edge research and tackling problems that lead to impactful solutions, Vikram’s long-term plans are to move into the private sector. Through his medical device startup, he has gained hands-on business experience – patenting the use of ultrasound to measure the pressure in the veins, undergoing clinical trials, and winning several business plan competitions which provided seed funding for the company’s operations and growth.

Vikram received his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo, where he gained over two years of industry experience as part of their co-op program. He also holds a Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University.

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Lucas SmithUniversity of California, San Diego, Bioengineering, Class of 2011

As an Air Force officer, Lucas Smith coordinated operational logistics to deploy thousands of troops and tons of cargo out of Washington state’s McChord Air Force Base. As a Ph.D. candidate in Bioengineering at UC San Diego, he applies similar leadership, teamwork, and problem-solving skills to his “bench to bedside” research on cerebral palsy muscles to translate his lab work into patient therapies.

Lucas is developing therapeutic targets in order to design a novel drug therapy for cerebral palsy. Through UCSD’s “Med-into-Grad” program, he works in collaboration with the Rady Children’s Hospital, and interacts with patients and families to learn first-hand what problems they’re facing in order to address them in the lab. Based on his conversations with cerebral palsy patients, Lucas decided to research treatments to address their concerns about the impact that periodic spasms have on their mobility, rather than researching the root cause of the spasms themselves. He obtains muscle biopsy samples from patients at the Children’s Hospital to measure single cell mechanics, determine which genes regulate different muscles, how they adapt to neurological inputs, and why they react in certain ways.

After completing his Ph.D. program, Lucas plans to continue his academic research in a post-doctoral position in muscle physiology. Future plans also include his spring 2011 wedding to fiancée Lindsay, a medical student.

Lucas holds a Bachelor’s degree in Bioengineering from the University of Washington.

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Arvind IyengarStanford University, Business, Class of 2011

Arvind Iyengar’s career path took an unusual course, thanks to a reality TV show called “Dream Job.” Then a McKinsey consultant, Arvind was selected from 10,000 participants, made the cut to first 50 and then 18 contestants, and was ultimately selected by the viewing audience as one of two finalists. Though the judges selected him as the runner-up, the show opened doors to his dream job – working in the sports industry at ESPN Star, Asia’s largest sports broadcaster and content provider.

Arvind spent a year in Singapore on the flagship show “SportsCenter,” where his popular sports column for the website led to an on-air position hosting a segment on sports statistics. While he enjoyed his experience as a sports writer and presenter, he wanted to leverage his love of sports and his entrepreneurial interests, and hone his burgeoning management skills. To help him accomplish this next goal of launching his own business, he enrolled in Stanford’s MBA program in the fall of 2010.

Now in his final year of his MBA, Arvind remains engrossed in the sports world. This past summer, he interned in New York City for the National Basketball Association, and launched his own sports analytics startup (http://f1ratings.com/) which uses multivariable regression models to rank Formula 1 drivers independent of their car.

After completing his studies, Arvind plans to focus on F1 Ratings to offer tools that measure and value performance in sports – particularly in sports like cricket and Formula 1 racing, which currently lack analytics. Longer term, he hopes to improve India’s sports infrastructure – from building playing fields to establishing competitive leagues – to develop more athletes as role models. In addition to his MBA, Arvind holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

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Li Tsun MooreStanford University, Computer Science, Class of 2001

By the age of 15, Li Tsun Moore had lived in five different countries across four continents. His parents wanted their children to experience cultures other than their Seattle neighborhood, so during his adolescence, Li and his sister did home stays with families in France, Ecuador, China, and Japan, staying with each family for one to two years.

This international theme re-emerged during Li’s first project as a Software Engineer at Google in 2001. If you’ve used Google from a different country, you can thank Li and the volunteer translators who helped internationalize the search engine’s homepage to be available in multiple languages.

Currently, Li is focused on Google’s infrastructure, working on Bigtable – distributed databases that query differently from traditional databases in order to simplify performance and add scalability for Google’s applications. When searching on Google, or using any of the Google applications, Li’s work allows billions of users to access the stored data quickly. Whatever he’s working on, Li says he’s happiest when he’s learning and can see the benefits to users, whether they are internal or external.

Outside the office, Li enjoys endurance sports – such as swimming, biking, and running in any combination. He’s completed several triathlons, half marathons, and 10K runs.

Li received both his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and his Master’s degree in Computer Science from Stanford University.

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Joyce PanStanford University, Computer Science, Class of 2008

Joyce Pan arrived at Stanford prepared to study engineering – she loved math and logic puzzles – but she wasn’t ready to give up her interest in the arts. So Joyce looked for coursework in which she’d be able to follow all those passions. Now, with two Computer Science degrees focusing on graphics as well as a minor in Studio Art, she is able to combine the creativity of computer programming with the visual creativity of filmmaking and storytelling.

During her undergraduate years, Joyce worked for a Ph.D. lab rendering images to visualize data for physics-based simulations. After graduation, Joyce brought that experience to DreamWorks Animation, where she works closely with artists to develop innovative digital lighting software. As a Technical Director on such films as Monsters vs. Aliens and Shrek Forever After, Joyce serves as a conduit between artists and software developers while also contributing to workflow design and tool implementation. While Joyce focuses on specific software problems on a day-to-day basis, she also enjoys witnessing the overall filmmaking process – from conception to storyboard to production to the final release.

In her spare time, Joyce practices wushu – a performance-based Chinese martial art – and plays violin in a community orchestra in Los Angeles, where she currently resides.

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Get to know our featured Scholars. Click the images to learn more.

With 80 new Siebel Scholars each year, our community is growing fast. To learn about a Scholar, click any name below or search by name.

Name	Year	School	Study	Location
Michael Schmidt	2010	MIT Bioengineering	Bioengineering	Charlestown, MA, United States
Marcio von Muhlen	2010	MIT Bioengineering	Bioengineering	Encinitas, MA, United States
Charles Herder	2010	MIT CS	Computer Science	Houston, TX, United States
Tony Kim	2010	MIT CS	Computer Science	Cambridge, MA, United States
Kwang Siong Jeremy Leow	2010	MIT CS	Computer Science
David Nackoul	2010	MIT CS	Computer Science	Canonsburg, PA, United States
Tao Schardl	2010	MIT CS	Computer Science	Lexington, KY, United States
Charles Gammal III	2010	MIT Sloan	Business	Westborough, MA, United States
Jessica Mazonson	2010	MIT Sloan	Business	Marblehead, MA, United States
Julie Teodorescu-Badia	2010	MIT Sloan	Business	Seattle, WA, United States
Angela Thedinga	2010	MIT Sloan	Business	Cary, NC, United States
Eduard Viladesau Franquesa	2010	MIT Sloan	Business	Cambridge, MA, United States
Susan Bortz	2010	Northwestern Kellogg	Business	Minneapolis, MN, United States
Jarrod Cady	2010	Northwestern Kellogg	Business	Chicago, IL, United States
Jeremiah Quinlan	2010	Northwestern Kellogg	Business	Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, United States
Jason Robinson	2010	Northwestern Kellogg	Business	Evanston, IL, United States
Donald Yeh	2010	Northwestern Kellogg	Business
Julia Chen	2010	Stanford Bioengineering	Bioengineering	Cupertino, CA, United States
Christina Fan	2010	Stanford Bioengineering	Bioengineering	Fremont, CA, United States
Douglas Jones II	2010	Stanford Bioengineering	Bioengineering	Tracy, CA, United States
Andrea Les	2010	Stanford Bioengineering	Bioengineering	Menlo Park, CA, United States
Chuba Oyolu	2010	Stanford Bioengineering	Bioengineering
Thomas Dillig	2010	Stanford CS	Computer Science	Mountain View, CA, United States
Shaddin Dughmi	2010	Stanford CS	Computer Science	Stanford, CA, United States
Daniel Gibson	2010	Stanford CS	Computer Science	Stanford, CA, United States
Daniel Horn	2010	Stanford CS	Computer Science	Palo Alto, CA, United States
Edward Luong	2010	Stanford CS	Computer Science	Emeryville, CA, United States
Ashley Evans	2010	Stanford GSB	Business	Greenwich, CT, United States
Kenneth Hammond	2010	Stanford GSB	Business	Portola Valley, CA, United States
Andrew Martin	2010	Stanford GSB	Business	New York, NY, United States
Matthew Skaruppa	2010	Stanford GSB	Business	Columbus, OH, United States
Iain Ware	2010	Stanford GSB	Business
Yi (Amy) Pang	2010	Tsinghua University	Computer Science
ShiYu Yan	2010	Tsinghua University	Computer Science
Xin Yang	2010	Tsinghua University	Computer Science
Jidong Zhai	2010	Tsinghua University	Computer Science
Yuzhou Zhang	2010	Tsinghua University	Computer Science
Jeffrey Dietrich	2010	UC Berkeley Bioengineering	Bioengineering	San Francisco, CA, United States
Rokhaya Diop	2010	UC Berkeley Bioengineering	Bioengineering	Bronx, NY, United States
Maral Gharib	2010	UC Berkeley Bioengineering	Bioengineering	Altadena, CA, United States
Somin Lee	2010	UC Berkeley Bioengineering	Bioengineering	Sacramento, CA, United States
Gary Lee	2010	UC Berkeley Bioengineering	Bioengineering	Baton Rouge, LA, United States
Alexandre Bouchard-Cote	2010	UC Berkeley CS	Computer Science
Percy Liang	2010	UC Berkeley CS	Computer Science	Berkeley, CA, United States
Adrian Mettler	2010	UC Berkeley CS	Computer Science	Redwood Valley, CA, United States
Benjamin Rubinstein	2010	UC Berkeley CS	Computer Science	Mountain View, CA, United States
Jason Wolfe	2010	UC Berkeley CS	Computer Science	San Francisco, CA, United States
Terrell Green	2010	UC San Diego Bioengineering	Bioengineering	Atlanta, GA, United States
Amy Lee Hsieh	2010	UC San Diego Bioengineering	Bioengineering	San Jose, CA, United States
Dr. Roy Lefkowitz	2010	UC San Diego Bioengineering	Bioengineering	La Jolla, CA, United States