About Me!
I'm a 24 year old graduate student who grew up in Salem, Oregon. Before I came to Oregon State to pursue a master's degree, I attended Grinnell College in Grinnell, IA, where I received a BA in physics and statistics. While at Grinnell, I also played 4 years of varsity golf, which remains one of the best experiences of my life. I chose to come to Oregon State both to be closer to home and because of the excellent interactions I had with students and faculty, and it's been a great fit. I'm looking to live and work on the West coast (ideally Seattle or Portland), but would be happy living anywhere!
My statistical interests center on machine learning and model selection. My machine learning acumen includes experience with penalized regression (LASSO/Ridge), feature selection techniques such as PCA and PLS, and multivariate techniques such as cluster analysis and correspondence analysis. Additionally, my master's project will revolve around deep learning and training neural networks in image recognition, a topic I'm excited to dive deeper into (pun... somewhat intended).
In my personal life, I fit a variety of roles. I am a proud Mexican-American man and find great satisfaction in staying in touch with my family and my heritage. Athletics are also a very important part of my life; if I'm not studying, I'm usually going to the gym, playing golf and tennis, or watching professional sports with family or friends. I've been a Mariners and Seahawks fan for as long as I can remember, and am proud to be so (more vocally so now that the Mariners are competitive again). I'm also a big music nerd, and back home, we also have two family dogs, Spike (liver-color) and Moose (orange), pictured below.
