Ping-Xiang Chen, a computer science Ph.D. student in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS), is the 2022 J. Yang & Family Foundation Fellowship awardee.

“It is an honor to be selected as the recipient of this fellowship among the Taiwanese students at UCI,” says Chen. “As a student studying abroad, when I know that there are people from my home country who are willing to support my research, I feel that I am not alone. I am truly grateful for the generous fellowship support from J. Yang and Family Foundation.”

According to the Ministry of Education in Taiwan, the foundation, established by Taiwanese-American entrepreneur Jackson Yang, partners with five prestigious universities and colleges in Southern California — UCI, Caltech, UCLA, UC San Diego and the ArtCenter College of Design — offering fellowships and grants that benefit Taiwanese students.

Chen says he chose UCI for several reasons. “The computer science program at UCI ranks top 30 in the United States. Moreover, UCI is located in one of the safest and most economically vibrant communities, providing students with a very nice research environment,” he says. “Most important of all, from the Ph.D. application interview, I had a very wonderful discussion with Professor Nikil Dutt. The research topic he is working on exactly matches my research interests, so after careful consideration, I made my decision to join the Dutt Research Group, starting my research journey at UCI.”

Chen is currently working on building novel self-aware and adaptive computing frameworks that support the efficiency, reliability and scalability of autonomous systems. He hopes to one day become a research scientist in industry, mainly conducting research in the field of computer systems.

— Shani Murray