Guidance at Every Step

When I first arrived in the United States, language barriers and academic challenges made the future feel uncertain. Fortunately, Yamei Academy became my guiding light, supporting me through thoughtful academic planning and patient mentorship.

Today, I’ve found my place in the creative industry through fashion design, using it to express emotions and ideas. Looking back, every stage of my growth began with Yamei’s support. It was not only part of my youth, but also the starting point of my dreams.

I attended Bonita High School in La Verne, California, and I am currently an undergraduate at the California Institute of Technology studying Electrical Engineering. Looking back, Yamei played a very important role in helping me find my direction during high school. Through the program, I had access to interviews, seminars, volunteering opportunities, college application support, and biweekly meetings that helped me think more clearly about who I wanted to become, not just where I wanted to go to college.

One of the most meaningful opportunities Yamei gave me was the chance to hear from and later be mentored by Dr. Jonathan H. Jiang, who guided me throughout three and a half years of high school. Under his mentorship, I published two papers as first author, one on climate change solutions and another on international cooperation for future human settlements in space. At Caltech, I have continued to build on that foundation through research in space systems, robotics, and autonomous navigation. I am currently involved with the Autonomous Robotics and Control Laboratory at Caltech, where I work on spacecraft dynamics, imitation learning, multi-agent control, and autonomous systems, and I have also worked on lunar water sampling through a SURF project at JPL and lunar rover localization research through the Stanford NAV Lab. My current research also includes an ongoing conference paper and an ongoing journal paper on shadow-matching strategies for rover localization on the Moon.

Outside of research, I serve as the Interim President and Social Director of Lloyd House, one of Caltech's undergraduate residential houses, where I help build community and support student life. In the future, I hope to pursue a Ph.D. in guidance, navigation, and control or autonomous vehicles, especially in applications related to space exploration and robotic systems. Yamei helped open the first doors for me, but more importantly, it helped me gain the confidence, mentorship, and long-term support to keep walking through them.