Stanford MS&E: Stories & Voices

Mike van Ness: Migration and Malleability Oct 7, 2025 00:23:55 Mike shares his decision making process after learning that his existing PhD advisor was a new hire at Stanford, and discusses the applied research which helps provide the 'why' in health outcome predictions. (Spoiler alert: It was also one of the deciding factors for his cross-country move).This episode is part of our series, MS&E graduating student profiles, that shares stories of ou

Zahra Hejrati: Education and Entrepreneurship Oct 7, 2025 00:24:08 Zahra recounts her unexpected decision to pursue a PhD and shares the surprising results of her research, which blended her passion for education, excitement for AI, and interest in entrepreneurship to reveal results that could have a significant impact for the refugee community.This episode is part of our series, MS&E graduating student profiles, that shares stories of our students as they pr

Mark Khalil: Exploration and Epiphanies Oct 7, 2025 00:24:31 Mark describes how a 7,500 mile bike ride exploring the full length of South America enhanced his understanding of MS&E concepts and helped him burn in and rack up epiphanies about the important things in a life already rich in international work and experiences.Mark's cycling blog: nothingbutmotion.com This episode is part of our series, MS&E graduating student profiles, that shares s

Poorva Bhalerao: Dabbling and Discovery Oct 7, 2025 00:23:05 Poorva discusses how a lifetime spent dabbling in different areas of interest and a desire to not get comfortable being too comfortable led her to seek independence in a new country and position herself to pivot to a career spent discovering the best ways to solve problems.This episode is part of our series, MS&E graduating student profiles, that shares stories of our students as they prepare

Lauryn Franzese: Agriculture and Applicability Oct 7, 2025 00:24:14 Lauryn discusses swapping her rural farm town for The Farm, and shares how she found a place for her passion for agriculture in the applicability of the MS&E skills and tools that she was able to put into practice alongside her first-place award winning team for Senior Project.This episode is part of our series, MS&E graduating student profiles, that shares stories of our students as they

Ayotunde Adeyinka: Agency and Autonomy Oct 7, 2025 00:22:15 Ayotunde examines how his international family perspectives and insatiable intellectual curiosity led to his core values of autonomy and agency, how he took full advantage of the liberal arts breadth of the Stanford curriculum in his quest to find his academic home, and how and why he'll be pursuing 'finance for good' as he starts his career.This episode is part of our series, MS&E graduating

MS&E Faculty: Pamela Hinds Sep 22, 2024 00:19:47 Challenge and Impact. Professor Hinds wanted to be asked tough questions, and that led her to find a home in academia after working in industry. She shares stories from her journey to Stanford, including how her research in management informs her leadership as the Fortinet Founders Chair of MS&E and how the department has increasingly emphasized social impact as it has grown and evolved.

MS&E Graduates: Yeganeh Ali Mohammadi (PhD) Jul 11, 2024 00:21:54 Exploring and Foreshadowing. Yeganeh explains how her love of applied math brought her to the operations research area of MS&E and how multidisciplinary exploring sparked an interest in modeling epidemic infection spread a full year before the COVID-19 outbreak, as well as how her work helped schools in Los Angeles return to in-person teaching, and her future plans for continued research for

MS&E Graduates: Shreyas Lakhtakia (MS) Jul 11, 2024 00:24:08 Curiosity and Conversation. Shreyas shares how his intellectual curiosity, love for getting to know people, and multicultural background led him to not just explore interdisciplinary academic work at the intersection of AI, health and society, but also create the Beagle Cafe, a salon for ideas and stories. Based out of his Stanford dorm room, the conversation project brought together hundreds of

MS&E Graduates: Nathan Lam (BS, MS) Jul 10, 2024 00:26:29 Friendship and Involvement. Nathan talks about how his involvement in student organizations—especially since COVID-19 meant that it was his sophomore year before he arrived on campus—has been a key element of his time at Stanford and in MS&E, leading to enhanced leadership and entrepreneurial skills, lifelong friendships, and dream teams for group coursework, all culminating with their (ultim

MS&E Graduates: Josh Grossman (PhD) Jul 9, 2024 00:21:04 Inspiring and Teaching. Josh describes how his interest in criminal justice, data science, and statistics brought him to MS&E, where he's been able to tap into his teenage years’ tutoring background to fulfill his love of teaching and mentoring students, as well as how he embraces the challenge of making classes exciting and engaging by including real world data collection and showing the

MS&E Graduates: Daniela Rendon (MS) Jul 9, 2024 00:21:53 Networking and Empowerment. Daniela discusses the extensive benefits to her sense of empowerment, initiative, and productivity that came from a change in perspective around career-related networking and developing an understanding that it's about building relationships and friendships, as well as from being intentional about setting aside non-negotiable self-care time each day as she juggled

MS&E Graduates: Belle Battistoni (BS) Jul 9, 2024 00:24:57 Confidence and Challenge. Belle (2024 PAC-12 student athlete of the year for women's rowing) discusses how multiple aspects of her rowing career, and embracing challenges and difficult situations, encouraged the emergence of her self confidence and strong leadership skills. She also describes why it's so important for young girls to maintain their involvement in sports and find mentors as

MS&E Graduates: Brian Reed (PhD) Jun 21, 2023 00:23:23 Quantifying and Understanding. 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 compet

MS&E Graduates: Isabelle Rao (PhD) Jun 21, 2023 00:22:45 Impact and Meaning. 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. She also discusses her journey from childhood hours spent in her dads office at

MS&E Graduates: Shreya Mantha (BS) Jun 21, 2023 00:25:56 Values and Principles. Shreya talks about 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 to inform her work, decisions and future plans. Shreya shares how her personal ‘board of directors’ has guided, advised and mentored her as she’s explored a wealth of internships

MS&E Graduates: Jeff Hanson (MS) Jun 21, 2023 00:26:19 Community and Flexibility. Jeff shares how and why he became an advocate for building community amongst the Honors Cooperative Program (HCP) students, aided in part by the flexibility offered by varying structure options in the degree program. Jeff discusses the realities of juggling work and study while also raising a family, putting his studies and the range of feedback sources into immediate us

MS&E Graduates: Kelly Devens (MS) Jun 21, 2023 00:24:57 Discovery and Blending. 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.

MS&E Graduates: Joshua 'JC' Chien (BS) Jun 21, 2023 00:25:23 Initiative and Relationships. JC discusses how joining the Fleet Street acapella group and becoming a practice player and manager with the womens 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 rel

MS&E UDR Students: Quinn Smalling Aug 12, 2022 00:15:29 Quinn shares how his love for mathematics and teaching led him to pursue research at Stanford, and that he plans to pursue a career in academia after graduating. During the UDR program, Quinn worked with his mentor, MS&E PhD student Josh Grossman, on research in the Stanford Computational Policy Lab in MS&E.

MS&E UDR Students: Romuald Thomas Aug 12, 2022 00:14:46 Romuald shares how he gravitates toward fields in which there are a multitude of ways to solve one problem, and how that interest led him to his major in Computer Science. During the UDR program, Romuald worked with his mentor, MS&E professor Johan Ugander, to study the correlations between demographics and the effects of implementing ranked choice voting.

MS&E UDR Students: Bethelehem Engeda Aug 12, 2022 00:12:19 Bethelehem shares how, growing up in the Bay Area, technology and business were always at the front of her mind. Now, Bethelehem is a junior majoring in Symbolic Systems with a concentration in computational social science. She also plans to pursue an MS&E coterminal master’s degree with a concentration in technology and engineering management. During the UDR program, Bethelehem worked with MS

MS&E Graduates: Marco Giuseppe Zocco (BS) Jul 19, 2022 00:22:16 Marco shares how his lifelong love for creation led him to pursue both music and MS&E at Stanford, and how he utilized skills from both disciplines to make the best out of the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Marco describes how a desire for interdisciplinary studies led him to MS&E, and how he plans to utilize the skills he learned to innovate and enhance both his artistry and

MS&E Graduates: Hannah Li (PhD) Jul 19, 2022 00:13:02 Hannah shares how her desire to create impact for large numbers of people led her to study operations research. She describes her research on eliminating bias in algorithms driven by artificial intelligence, how she blends the study of technical systems with the study of the people involved with those systems, and her plans to continue in academia as a professor at Columbia Business School.

MS&E Graduates: Giovanni Malloy (PhD) Jul 19, 2022 00:23:09 Giovanni explains how his early experiences in computer science and math paved the way for his interest in engineering. That path led him to study infectious disease outbreaks as an undergraduate, which in turn positioned him to be at the forefront of COVID-19 research when the pandemic began. Giovanni also shares advice for current students and how he found work/life balance as a PhD student at S

MS&E Graduates: Juan Langlois (MS) Jul 19, 2022 00:20:11 Juan shares how his innate curiosity for inventing and advancing processes led him to pursue engineering. 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, Juan looks forward to starting his career in Silicon Valley and soaking up knowledge in a larger organization with deep

MS&E Graduates: Bao Phan (BS & MS) Jul 19, 2022 00:21:02 Bao shares how she grew up wanting to become an immigration lawyer, but, upon arriving at Stanford, discovered how to use engineering and computational tools to advance social good. She also discusses her experience as a first-generation low-income, or FLI, student at Stanford and her work helping other FLI students as a member of MS&E’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee.

MS&E Graduates: Anneke Claypool (PhD) Aug 24, 2021 00:13:43 Anneke shares how serving in the Peace Corps teaching high school mathematics led to her area research. While teaching overseas, she 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. Anneke's research focuses on infectious disease modeling and policies w

MS&E Graduates: Lauren Green (BS) Aug 24, 2021 00:11:42 Growing up in the Silicon Valley, Stanford became one of the first colleges Lauren learned about at a very early age. Lauren also swam competitively throughout her childhood and high school years and decided that Stanford was the perfect place to continue her athletic journey. Lauren's interest in engineering was sparked by her parents' stories about her grandfathers- one being an electric

MS&E Graduates: Emily Arbuthnott (MS) Jul 27, 2021 00:20:32 Emily shares with us how the COVID-19 pandemic led her to MS&E, and how the program helped her to find practical applications for her background in economics. Emily also shares stories about her time at Stanford and offers advice to future students in MS&E.

MS&E Graduates: Saron Dea (BS) Jul 22, 2021 00:27:11 Saron shares stories about her childhood and moving around the world until she arrived in California at the age of eleven. Saron discusses how she originally came to Stanford determined on becoming a human rights lawyer but soon discovered that she could make just a big impact on societal issues by pursuing a degree in engineering. She also shares stories about her time at Stanford and in the MS&a

MS&E Graduates: Eric Volmar (PhD) Jul 22, 2021 00:30:22 Eric shares with us his research on mission-driven organizations, and how entrepreneurs can be successful while doing good for society. He also shares stories about his time at Stanford and in the MS&E program.

MS&E Graduates: Andrea Banuet Gonzalez (MS) Jul 22, 2021 00:19:52 Andrea shares how her interest in engineering was sparked by her fascination for how things worked. Her parents supported and encouraged her curiosity, no matter how random the question or thought appeared to be. Andrea originally came to Stanford as a pre-med student but wanted to explore healthcare from more of a policy lens, understanding how to make the best decisions regarding healthcare issu

MS&E Graduates: Sean Howard (MS) Jul 22, 2021 00:15:10 Sean shares with us 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. Sean also describes his experience as one of the student members of MS&E’s diversity, equity and inclusion committee, and his plans for the future.

MS&E Graduates: Brian Seabrooks (BS) Jul 22, 2021 00:37:44 Brian shares with us his journey from being a physics major to MS&E and shares his passion for creating tangible impact in the world. Brian also shares stories about his time at Stanford and offers advice to future MS&E students.

MS&E Graduates: Aron Nunez (BS) Jun 21, 2021 00:15:30 Aron shares stories about his childhood and how growing up on an orchard farm, helping his father count trees, led to his fascination with math and engineering. He wanted to solve problems around efficiency and optimization and found that math allowed him to do so. Aron also shares stories about his time at Stanford, what led him to MS&E, and his plans for the future.

MS&E Graduates: Wayni Li (PhD) Jun 21, 2021 00:18:23 Wanyi shares how listening to an episode of the Freakonomics podcast series featuring Al Roth led her to pursue a PhD in MS&E. Wanyi came to Stanford to study operations research focused on economic systems and environmental sustainability. While at Stanford, she started asking questions about how governments and nonprofits incentivized people to protect and conserve the environment. Wanyi als

MS&E Graduates: Virgil Smith (MS) Jun 21, 2021 00:15:44 Virgil shares that his interest in Engineering became apparent as an undergraduate in the United States Military Academy, where he learned about Dynamic Systems and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis. While attending USMA, he decides, along with one of his classmates, that the next logical step would be to pursue a graduate degree in MS&E. Virgil also discusses his time at Stanford and his plans

MS&E Graduates: Ali Shameli (PhD) Jun 15, 2020 00:12:29 Ali’s research focus is in the area of Operation Research. He helps define his research area and how it has extended beyond MS&E with collaboration in the CS and Econ 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.

MS&E Graduates: Travis Ira Trammell III (PhD) Jun 15, 2020 00:23:05 Travis shares with us his research focus in Decision Risk Analysis, and what led him to his research topic for his dissertation. Travis leads us in-depth into his research where he studied fake news by using the quantitative method to examine it’s 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.

MS&E Graduates: Laura Sun (MS) Jun 15, 2020 00:10:32 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.

MS&E Graduates: Pablo Hernandez Sanz (MS) Jun 15, 2020 00:10:01 Pablo shares that his fascination with engineering began at an early age, taking apart toys to see how they work. That his teachers in high school made science and math courses exciting and fun, as opposed to just fulfilling course requirements. He also describes what he will miss most about MS&E and Stanford, and how he will apply what he’s learned to his newest venture.

MS&E Graduates: Guillermo Camarillo (BS) Jun 13, 2020 00:08:36 First in his family to graduate from college, Guillermo shares stories about growing up in Chicago in a small community called Little Village. At a young age, he developed a passion for math and science, which synthesized into a love for engineering. He shares stories about his times at Stanford and in the MS&E program and his plans for the future.

MS&E Graduates: Lauren Feitzinger (BS) Jun 12, 2020 00:08:25 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. Lauren also shares her plans for the future, which include a position in consulting and an MBA a few years down the road.

MS&E Graduates: Elizabeth Reichert (BS) Jun 12, 2020 00:11:25 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. Elizabeth also shares her plans for life after Stanford and what she will miss most about the campus and community.

MS&E Graduates: Catherine Gu (MS) Jun 12, 2020 00:20:44 Catherine shares stories about her time at Stanford, what she'll miss about the MS&E program, and her plans for the future in the Blockchain and Cryptocurrency space.

MS&E Graduates: Barbara Cardona (BS) Jun 11, 2020 00:08:44 Barbara shares stories about her time at Stanford and in the MS&E program. During this interview, we also discuss Barbara's career plan, which involves international development and her home country of Honduras.

MS&E Graduates: Robert Bremner (PhD) Jun 11, 2020 00:14:53 Rob shares with us his research focus in Organization and Strategy, and he takes us in-depth into his research where he studied how to improve the innovation process, particularly in the gaming industry. He also shares stories about his time at Stanford and in the MS&E program.

Episodes

Recommended