People Spotlights

Graduate Student, Andrew and Peggy Cherng Department of Medical Engineering

Haixu Shen

I'm a 4th year graduate student in Medical Engineering, working with Professor Yu-Chong Tai. My research mainly focuses on translation medical devices, in particular, an affordable and portable stroke sensor for quick stroke detection for home or ambulance settings. In this way, patients can get a quick diagnosis before even arriving at the hospital, which can vastly speed up the treatment and reduce brain damage. I enjoy the multidisciplinary nature of my research, having to learn knowledge from various fields. Outside of research, I like exploring foods from different cultures. I also enjoy playing basketball with my friends.

Lead Systems Engineer, NASA Ames Mission Design Center

Kevin Parkin

Kevin Parkin (MS '00, PhD '06, Aeronautics) is a rocket scientist, inventor, and a visionary transforming sci-fi into reality. Currently the Lead Systems Engineer for the NASA Ames Mission Design Center, Parkin has returned to the place he helped establish in 2007, where he began his career after graduating from Caltech. His career highlights include the invention of the microwave thermal rocket, a breakthrough from his graduate studies at Caltech, which he has further developed through collaborations with NASA and DARPA.

Michelle Armond

Michelle Armond (BS '00, electrical engineering and history) loves being a lawyer. Informed by her Caltech undergraduate training, Armond's two-decade professional journey as an intellectual property litigator is marked by her unique ability to navigate both legal and technical complexity. Five years ago, Armond's career took a bold turn when she and a colleague started their own law firm in 2019, Armond Wilson LLP.

Paul Wegener

Paul T. Wegener (BS '71) is dedicated to transforming ideas into groundbreaking innovations. His career spans environmental engineering and pharmaceuticals, with ventures that range from pioneering an ocean wave energy conversion device to exploring green tea extract as a treatment for viral infections. Despite claiming to be retired, Wegener continues to analyze data sets and clinical trials—driven by his passion for invention—and he welcomes discussion and input from anyone interested in his work.

Elena Priesen Reis

Hello everyone! I'm Elena, a Materials Science G2 in Professor Brent Fultz's group (just graduated with my master's, woop!). I also have an MSci from University College London in physics and now combine these two areas to research quirky thermophysical properties of magnetic systems, like magnetocaloric materials (which change temperature through their magnetic phase transition) and Invar-like alloys (which have nearly zero thermal expansion near their magnetic transition). Outside of research, I'm the coordinator of the Caltech chapter of the Plant-Based Universities initiative, aiming to improve Caltech's sustainability, vice-chair of the EAS Graduate Student Advisory Board, and a member of the Graduate Student Council Board of Directors. I also love cooking delicious vegan meals, teaching my dobie new tricks, doing yoga and meditation, reading fantasy and sci-fi novels, watching anime, and listening to/playing music.

Graduate Student, GALCIT

Alex Acosta

Before joining the Caltech community, I graduated from Rice University with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. Currently, I am a fourth year Aeronautics PhD student in the Caltech Hypersonics Group under Professor Joanna Austin. In this lab, I conduct experiments using Caltech’s Ludwieg Tube, which is capable of accelerating air to four times the speed of sound! My research involves studying how shockwave unsteadiness could adversely couple with the structural vibrations of panel surfaces on high-speed aircraft. The ultimate goal of my project is to enhance our current understanding of shock-boundary layer interactions and to improve the predictive capabilities of fluid-structure computational models. On the weekends, you can find me outdoors hiking around the San Gabriel mountains, shooting photographs on my film cameras, or exploring food spots in LA.

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