Student Stories & Voices
MS&E students are brought together by interdisciplinary curiosity and common research interests and goals. Read more about our students below.
Ky Robinson
From unknown to NCAA champion, MS&E senior Ky Robinson has become the face of Stanford distance running.
Read Ky's story
2023 PhD cohort
Meet MS&E's newest PhD students! This year's cohort comes from a variety of backgrounds and areas of expertise, but coalesces around making the world a better place.
Get to know the 2023 PhD cohort
Joshua "JC" Chien
JC discusses how joining the Fleet Street acapella group and becoming a practice player and manager with the women's basketball team were two of the best decisions he made at Stanford, how his initiative in reaching out to people for informational conversations helped guide him into MS&E and onto his career path as he embarks on his next steps, and how building relationships brings him joy, meaning and success.
Hear JC's story
Kelly Devens
Kelly talks about her discovery that she could complete her degree while working, and discusses how invaluable this opportunity to study while managing projects with the Microsoft Azure Space team has been for her. She also explores how she is leaning into her imperfect perfectionism as she blends her passions for engineering and all things theatrical.
Hear Kelly's story
Jeff Hanson
Jeff discusses the realities of juggling work and study while also raising a family in the Honors Cooperative Program (HCP), putting his studies and the range of feedback sources into immediate use in his work, and how the community that he helped bring together benefited many of his peers.
Hear Jeff's story
Shreya Mantha
Shreya shares how her exposure as a teen to the challenges faced by trafficking victims led her to co-found the Foundation for Girls with her sister, and how her values and principles continue inform her work, decisions and future plans.
Hear Shreya's story
Isabelle Rao
Isabelle shares how her work examining major healthcare issues such as equitable vaccine allocation and the opioid epidemic from an operations research lens has been able to have an impact in decision making and policy development, and how she takes meaning from knowing how many lives can be saved.
Hear Isabelle's story
Brian Reed
Brian discusses the value of multi-disciplinary work and how he has combined economics, computer science, and the natural sciences with MS&E to quantify the threats of extreme temperatures and flooding on the economic risks and prospects for companies in various industries, and how an understanding of these can inform mitigation efforts as well as create a competitive advantage.
Hear Brian's story
Catherine Baron (MS student)
Our 2023 graduating student podcasts feature music from Catherine Baron. Catherine loves making music because the cross-disciplinary process of creation echoes her favorite Renaissance greats. From storytelling to audio engineering, she revels in building a soundscape that invites reflection. As a composer of what some call poetic jazz fusion, she fuses musical elements from lived experiences in the East and West. We used an instrumental version of "Rosy" from her album Adrift.
Listen to Adrift
Caitlin and Sean Casey
Growing up, the twins had a family motto: "Caseys are kind." At Stanford, they excelled in and out of the classroom, propelled by their dedication to others.
Read and watch the Caseys' story
Antonia Hellman
Antonia's passion for data science in politics, as well as a desire for a broad education, led her to MS&E. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic presented an opportunity for her to start her own business.
Read Antonia's story
2022 PhD cohort
A warm welcome to our 2022 PhD student cohort! Get to know some of our newest students.
Meet the 2022 cohort
2022 UDR program participants
Students in the 2021-22 MS&E Undergraduate Diversity in Research (UDR) program cohort share their stories, experiences, and plans for the future.
Hear UDR participants' stories
Bao Phan
Bao shares how she discovered how to use engineering and computational tools to advance social good, her experience as a first-generation low-income student at Stanford, and her work on MS&E’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee.
Hear Bao's story
Giovanni Malloy
Giovanni studied infectious disease outbreaks as an undergraduate, which positioned him to be at the forefront of COVID-19 research when the pandemic began. He also shares advice for finding work/life balance at Stanford.
Hear Giovanni's story
Hannah Li
Hannah describes her research on eliminating bias in algorithms driven by artificial intelligence, and how she blends the study of technical systems with the study of the people involved with those systems.
Hear Hannah's story
Juan Langlois
Juan was born and raised in Chile, where he acquired undergraduate and master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering and worked as a financial engineer at a small company. Now, he looks forward to soaking up knowledge in a larger Silicon Valley organization.
Hear Juan's story
Marco Zocco
Marco's lifelong love for creation led him to pursue both music and MS&E at Stanford. He plans to utilize the skills he learned in both disciplines to innovate and enhance both his artistry and career.
Hear Marco's story
Brody Malone
In this Stanford Athletics spolight, senior Brody Malone talks about his journey to Stanford and the gymnastics program, how grit and determination shaped that journey, and the importance of family.
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2021 PhD cohort
A warm welcome to our 2021 PhD student cohort! Get to know some of our newest students.
Meet the 2021 cohort
Anneke Claypool
While teaching with the Peace Corps overseas, Anneke noticed healthcare problems, such as malaria, directly affecting her students’ attendance. After that experience, she decided to apply her mathematics background to the healthcare system.
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Lauren Green
Lauren's interest in engineering was sparked by her parents' stories about her grandfathers, one being an electrical engineer at IBM, and the other an engineer who worked on top-secret government projects.
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Brian Seabrooks
Brian shares his journey from being a physics major to MS&E and his passion for creating tangible impact in the world. He also shares stories about his time at Stanford and offers advice to MS&E students.
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Andrea Banuet Gonzalez
Andrea shares how at an early age she became fascinated with the way things worked—inspecting leaves under a telescope or taking apart and rebuilding a household fan.
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Saron Dea
Saron originally came to Stanford determined to become a human rights lawyer, but soon realized that she could make just as big of an impact on societal issues with a degree in engineering.
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Emily Arbuthnott
Emily shares how the COVID-19 pandemic led her to MS&E and how the program helped her find practical applications for her background in economics.
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Sean Howard
Sean shares how his passion for engineering started with a childhood project car and describes how the interdisciplinary nature of MS&E is what attracted him to the program. He also describes his experience as a student member of MS&E's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee, and his plans for the future.
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Virgil Smith
Virgil shares that his interest in engineering became apparent as an undergraduate in the United States Military Academy (USMA), where he learned about dynamic systems and multi-criteria decision analysis.
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Eric Volmar
Eric shares his research on mission-driven organizations and how entrepreneurs can be successful while doing good for society.
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Wanyi Li
Wanyi shares how listening to an episode of the Freakonomics podcast series featuring Professor Al Roth led her to pursue a PhD degree in MS&E. Wanyi came to Stanford to study Operations Research focused on Economic Systems and Environmental Sustainability.
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Aron Nunez
Aron shares stories about his childhood, and how growing up on an orchard and helping his father count trees led to his fascination with math and engineering. He wanted to solve problems around efficiency and optimization, and found math allowed him to do so.
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Isaiah Sanders
Isaiah’s passion for helping those around him started early. He supported underprivileged youth and has been an inspirational speaker to high school and college students.
Read Isaiah's story
2020 PhD cohort
A warm welcome to our 2020 PhD student cohort! Get to know some of our newest students:
Mohak Goyal, Grace Guan, Ravi Sojitra, Shengbo Wang, Fernando Rodriguez Silva Santisteban, Junting Duan, Tristan Pollner, Wajeeha Ahmad, Zhihao Jiang, Yuchen Hu, Sirui Lin, and Mohammad Roghani.
Malik Antoine
"Where I grew up, there are certain routes you're supposed to take. The courage comes in taking a different one."
Malik describes his journey and why a Stanford degree is especially meaningful for him.
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Robert Bremner
Rob shares his research focus in Organization and Strategy, and goes in depth into his research where he studied how to improve the innovation process (particularly in the gaming industry).
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Barbara Cardona
Barbara shares with us her fondest memories about her time at Stanford and in the MS&E program. She also shares insights about growing up in Honduras and how that directly influenced her career trajectory.
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Guillermo Camarillo
Guillermo shares stories about his time at Stanford and in the MS&E program, and also provides advice for underrepresented minority students on campus, stating that they do belong and their presence in their department and classrooms are valid, in addition to their merit.
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Lauren Elizabeth Feitzinger
Lauren shares her fondest memories about what attracted her to the STEM field, including solving math problems with her mother at a very young age, describing it as something that was ingrained into her identity.
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Pablo Hernandez Sanz
Pablo shares how his fascination with engineering began at an early age, taking apart toys to see how they work, and how his teachers in high school made science and math courses exciting and fun, as opposed to just fulfilling course requirements.
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Catherine Gu
Catherine shares her fondest memories about her time at Stanford and in the MS&E program. She also describes how the courses she took both in and outside of the program propelled her into the world of cryptocurrency and blockchain.
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Ali Shameli
Ali helps define his research area of Operations Research and how it has extended beyond MS&E with collaboration in the CS and Economics departments at Stanford. He shares his thought process for choosing the MS&E program and describes it as being the perfect blend between theory and application.
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Elizabeth Christy Reichert
Elizabeth shares with us her fondest memories of her time at Stanford and in the MS&E program. She goes into depth about what attracted her to engineering, including the creativity and mindful ways engineers solve problems.
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Travis Trammell III
Travis goes in depth into his research where he studied fake news by using quantitative methods to examine its spread on online platforms, as well as potential counters that both government and industry could use in an effort to stop the spread of disinformation.
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Laura Sun
Laura describes watching her father work on engineering projects as a young child, and how that ignited her curiosity for engineering. Laura also shares what she will miss most about the MS&E program and Stanford, in addition to her plans for the future.
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Alton Russell
Within the area of modeling healthcare decision and healthcare policy, Alton's research area focuses on safety in the blood supply.
Watch more
Hannah Li
"As an engineer, you’re taught to build things, to optimize things."
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Maya Thompson and Aisha Sharif
"I just want younger engineering students to know that you can do it."
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Averie Collins
"Soccer has taught me so many incredible life skills from teamwork to problem solving, which I think directly applies to my work in MS&E."
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Tyreke White
"Being able to choose between a wide array of courses from accounting to machine learning is one of the hallmarks of this program that I would have missed out on if I'd chosen another program."
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Melanie Craxton
"I became interested in the intersection between behavioral economics and energy policy, inspiring many of the projects I have undertaken during my time at Stanford."
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Gregory Heon
"I love the mix of mathematical theory and computer science that is all focused on real-world applications, and Stanford MS&E allowed me to apply them to real problems."
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Bryce Marion
"Embrace the struggle. We come to Stanford because it’s an institution that can push us to a place in which we are uncomfortable-out of our depth. These experiences will come to bear the most fruit once you’ve moved on from this time in life. "
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Karly Jerman
"It felt good to do research that was going to be immediately used... and was doubly satisfying because it was already applying my training to solve a problem by using data."
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Jacqueline Wibowo
"I knew that I wanted to have social impact mixed with technology in an organization that I would like to found in the future."
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Jongbin Jung
"Helping people make challenging and important decisions is the most fulfilling goal for me. I’m also excited about making sense of complicated systems and finding insights from large amounts of data."
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Federica Roth
"I took classes on national security, economics, bioengineering, optimization, and so much more, all within MS&E. There are so many amazing classes here at Stanford, it is important to take advantage of them."
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Allison Pitt
"I know that my experience here is equipping me with the skills and perspective I'll need to make an impact."
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Sruthi Thatchenkery
"I am analyzing data to pinpoint the most effective ways for medical device startups to incorporate physicians into their work in collaboration with the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP) and Stanford Graduate School of Business."
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Aaron Mitchell
"In high school, I thought I would go into business. It wasn’t until I attended SSEA that I realized the breadth of engineering programs Stanford has to offer."
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