Born in 1970 in Midland, Michigan, to Taiwanese parents, I spent my teenage years in Lake Jackson, Texas. I did my undergraduate studies in chemical engineering at Rice University. Afterwards I obtained a doctorate in chemical engineering from Stanford University. My jobs in science included an assistant professorship at Stanford in the early 2000s. More recently I became certified to teach math in Texas public schools in grades 4-12. After my brief experience teaching sixth-grade math, I understood something that my cousin, a university professor, has known for years. He summarized the secret to success in the classroom in a single word: “performance”. By contrast, I describe effective tutoring as “coaching”, the two terms parallel and complementary.

As a child, I loved taking art in Midland’s public schools. In 2024, I resumed art classes as an adult when reading about Paula Rego: Rego found her dominant artistic medium, soft pastels, in her mid-fifties. I discovered the making of books also at this age. My print-on-demand books include two memoirs and Physics for a Middle Schooler: Integrated Science Lessons Tailored to My Student's Interests (2026).

16 Oct 2026