Marshall Jiang

Current position: Post-Doc at Brown

Education (degrees and school): PhD applied math at Brown

Hobbies: Rock climbing, gaming, reading

Where were you born and where did you grow up? Where did you go to high school?

I was born in China, and moved to Florida in third grade where I went to high school. Florida actually has a robust online teaching system, and I was fortunate enough to be able to take AP CS online.

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

I didn’t think of a specific career growing up; I only wanted a path where I can really think about problems and change the world in a more positive sense. As someone who was very much a nerd and did math club in high school, math and CS was a very natural progression for me.

How did you get into computer science?

My mom works in the CS industry also, and gave me the resources to sort of learn by myself. I remember my parents buying me a robotics kit where one can program it to do a lot of interesting tasks.

What other jobs have you had?

I’ve been a career academic, so not really haha. The one internship I had in industry was also research-based, and I did very much the same thing as I’m doing now.

What is an average day at work like for you?

It really depends on what phase of a project we’re in; when we’re in the research phase, a good chunk of the time involves coding up the thing we’re researching, or just thinking about the mathematics behind the code. There’s a lot of down time, and productivity comes in bursts.

What is your favorite part of your job?

The satisfaction of knowing that you’ve invented something that’s never been realized before. It’s rare, but very satisfying.

What is the best opportunity you have had because of computer science?

I’m still early in my career, but I think the best part about having a fluency in computer science means that there’s almost always a job out there.

Any great stories about working in computer science?

I have great stories about people working in computer science :)