My full name is Chrstine Kha Tang (English). Tang Kha Han (Vietnamese). Zeng Kexin (Chinese pinyin). I am conversational in Vietnamese and plan to learn how to read/write in Vietnamese since I want to/like to help people...and because I live in the Houston, TX area now. I am debating about relearning Spanish or learning Mandarin after that.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts and raised in Lawrence, Massachusetts. I am Chinese-Vietnamese American. My grandparents are from Chaozhou, Guangdong, China and my parents are from Vietnam. They survived the war and came to the United States as refugees. They are old (senior citizens) and do not like to be disturbed...but don't mind my sharing their story (much). There is a large age gap (in some cultures they are old enough to be my parents) because they had to save money to raise me...and only me. I was premature (2 months). This is why I was born in Boston and not Lawrence. I suspect maternal stress (and my mom loves walking a lot) might be a factor (and a factor in mental/behavioral health issues in children). Family stress. Lots of theories.
Anyway, my family does not like waste and my dad is very into being just in time. Kinda like the Gilbreths! We don't use a stopwatch though. I get very self-conscious and cannot focus when being watched/timed. I have terrible test anxiety and hate public speaking.
I took a test in my junior year of high school and some algorithm (that some coder created) produced Industrial Engineering. I read about it, thought about my family and friends' family members who work on manufacturing lines, remembered the fun I had visiting the Ben & Jerry's factory and a teddy bear factory for my 8th grad class trip and thought YES. Math, engineering and business. This fits me. My family is the biggest reason why I like and choose to be an Industrial and Systems Engineer - Health Systems Engineer.
I have a Bachelor of Science - Industrial Engineering (IE) '13 from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). I minored in Management Information Systems (MIS) and Statistics. Completed the stats minor but quit my capstone project for MIS because I didn't want to burnout my senior year. Professor Isa Bar-On also gave me an offer of a lifetime to stay at WPI, be a GAANN fellow, study OR applied to health (aka be a Health Systems Engineer but I was in Manufacturing Engineering). People like to give/offer me awards. I like awards/celebrating good work but don't like plaques and trophies. Be lean! ;)
Unfortunately, WPI IE does not have a human factors nor an ergonomics course (that I am aware of)...so I read and watch videos on that. I enjoy learning new things.
Master of Science - Manufacturing Engineering (MFE) '15
Passed PhD qualifications (Winter '14) and my proposal defense in MFE (Spring '16) then burnt out badly in May 2017 working on my dissertation project at the White River Junction (WRJ) VA as an Advanced Fellow in Health Systems Engineering. I appreciate the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center folks who cared for me (and diagnosed me with bipolar disorder I), my WRJ VA buddies, my Dartmouth colleagues/teachers/friends, WPI folks (especially WPI SD Club), and my friends and family for helping me with my recovery. I have a lot more empathy now...and somewhat understand John Nash. When extremely stressed, I get confused between my simulation/mental models/fantasies/day dreams and reality. A good friend of mine gave me Our Mathematical Universe but then I accidentally donated it before reading it. It is on my reading list.
If I had finished my dissertation project with the VA, then I would have stayed with the VA, applied for a regional then national career development award. I am still debating about doing that...but I prefer to help kids. Helping kids is less depressing.
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I am a Charles O. Thompson Scholar, an award that recognizes outstanding academic performance by first-year students. I am a member of Tau Beta Pi MA Alpha (engineering honor society), Beta Gamma Sigma (a business honor society, IE at WPI is in the School of Business), and Alpha Pi Mu (Industrial Engineering honor society). I applied to WPI's 5 year combined B.S./M.S. program for a masters degree in Operations Design and Leadership (now Operations Analytics Management) [but then Professor Bar-On's offer changed my plans]. On February 13, 2011, I passed the IIE Six Sigma Green Belt certification test. And then the IIE (now IISE) Lean Green Belt certification test the following year.
I went to St. Patrick School (now Lawrence Catholic Academy) and Central Catholic High School in Lawrence, MA. At St. Patrick's, I won the grammar award given at graduation. I make grammatical mistakes when rushing. I like it when people check my work. At Central Catholic, I won the award for Business and Technology. At both schools, some committee decided who won win (and sometimes be excluded from other awards) for each subject or academic department. I vaguely remember being in some honor society in high school (I am updating this in 2019 and my losing memory rate/flow [like a river flows] took that out of my information stock). Central awarded me the Rensselaer Medal but then RPI waitlisted me and is too far from my hometown for my tastes. WPI also matched the scholarship. Distance is also another reason I decided not to go to UMass-Amherst. My dislike for cities (too crowded and loud) was why I chose not to go to Northeastern even though a lot of my friends and Central classmates went there.
I appreciate every organization and each person in those organizations from the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Asian Center to WPI for providing assistance from scholarships and financial aid to advice and intervention. My "homies" and I got to stick together from the Asian Center to St. Patrick's. Three of us would not have made the age cut off but Sister Joan (? I think she intervened.) talked to St. Pat's and let us go to 1st grade all together. We were too cool for Kindergarten =P
My hobbies are playing basketball, softball, badminton (Dartmouth and Colby-Sawyer folks let me join them when I was in the Upper Valley. Norwich, VT folks let me join them for badminton...and basketball too! Nice people), pool (billiards) and organizing events:
Operations Research is my favorite hobby. I am also very interested in learning how to play soccer/futbol! GO USWNT!