Elaine Chang has a passion for learning, growing from different experiences to another, and she’s equally excited about sharing what she knows with others. These traits make her uniquely suited to her work as a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft, where she combines her love of technology with business applications to help create cutting-edge software products. Wearing multiple hats in this role, Elaine works with diverse groups, displaying a great deal of flexibility and willingness to adapt.
Part 6 of the “Made on Haida Gwaii” Series by April Diamond Dutheil. “Big complex problems don’t scare me anymore, they’re exciting,” tells computer scientist Leigh-Anne Mathieson.
UBC Assistant Professor of Computer Science Andy Warfield has won awards that range from the UBC Terrific TA Award to an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Studentship, a Cambridge Commonwealth Scholarship, and most recently, the prestigious Sloan Research Fellowship. He laughs outright, though, at the suggestion that somehow he was destined from a young age to academic greatness. “Oh no, I was pretty disorganized as a high school student. When I applied to colleges it was under a kind of ‘total chance and random decision’ method.‘”
In her popular book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck describes her notion of two basic states of mind that inform how we learn and succeed. The first is the “fixed mindset,” where a person might believe himself to possess genetically immutable traits. Such a person might think, for example, that he is a strong athlete, or is bad in math, or good with people. The second is the “growth mindset,” where someone believes she can work to develop traits, strengthening areas of ability and making improvements in weaker areas.
When you ask Amy Kwok about the kinds of hobbies she enjoys, she pauses to gather her thoughts and then launches into a list of favourites: “I like to play the piano and guitar and to paint, I try to travel, I love playing badminton, I really like hiking, and I like to do the Grouse Grind with friends—slowly!” Such a mix of the active and more reflective, the artistic and the sporting, the solo adventure and the group activity are pretty illustrative of Amy’s diverse talents and they showcase her love of learning in numerous settings.
Like so many UBC Computer Science BCS graduates, Tristan Moss has a C.V. worth the envy of many far older than he: an undergraduate degree from the University of Victoria, a Bachelor of Computer Science from UBC, software development positions with Kodak, Microsoft, and iQmetrix, and an extensive portfolio of volunteer community service throughout the world. Despite these accomplishments, he is modest and self-effacing, and as an example points out that he was a mediocre student who initially had difficulties studying at UVic.
Many of the profiles on this site showcase the ways in which BCS students use computer science skills to make radical shifts in their careers. For Roula O’Regan, the shift involved taking her then-current career, graphic design, and altering and transforming it so that the pleasure of the graphic product would still be there, but with a different and deeper sensibility surrounding it.
A hugely popular form of entertainment, video gaming is currently a nearly $50 billion worldwide industry that experts predict will overtake the music industry in sales by the end of 2011. This is true in no small part because gaming, contrary to popular belief, is something we all seem to do.
Jody LeBlanc, now a Database and ERP Systems Administrator with SAP, laughs as she recalls her initial thoughts about computer science. “When I was in high school, computers were still relatively new and I was one of those people who was a little bit afraid of them. Actually I didn’t really want to touch them!” She did love science, however, and she had a particular interest in math. Enjoying the outdoors as well, she participated for four summers during high school in the Ontario Ranger program.
To read Pat Short’s resume as an IT business analyst for the past 20 years is to walk through a short list of prominent Canadian and U.S. businesses and public service organizations: Business Objects, Ltd., Northwestel, Bank of Nova Scotia, Bell Canada, BMW Financial Services Canada, Providence Health Care, Vancouver Coastal Health, BC Gas, and Boston Pizza International, among others.
