CVPR Daily - Wednesday

DAILY Wednesday Evonne Ng 25 So your PhD was a recent decision. When did you decide to become a scientist? That actually goes a while back. When I was little, I think in elementary school, they would ask you the question of what do you want to be when you grow up? For whatever reason, my answer was always a clock fixer. [both laugh ] I honestly don’t even know where that came from! I think it just comes mainly from my dad who really likes to take things apart and re-engineer them. He’s an electrical engineer. Growing up, I also had this exposure where I would enjoy taking things apart and seeing them come back together. I think that comes mainly from my dad’s side. He does a lot of those things. At UT Austin, I actually thought I wanted to become a hardware engineer. Gradually, I realized that I’m not a fan of circuits! [ laughs ] At what age did you get your first clock? I actually got my first clock from Hong Kong. I think I was around 8 or something. Was it before you decided you wanted to repair clocks? Which came first? I got the clock first, and I remember it breaking. Then I put it back together! We finally figured it out! [both laugh] Besides wanting to repair clocks, what were you like as a little kid? I was the youngest child in the house so my sisters probably found me very annoying! [ laughs ] But I was always very active as a little kid. I was always running around. It was always hard to get me to sit down and do something because I was always running around. One thing I really remember from my childhood is not wanting to play the violin. [laughs] I took violin lessons as a child, and I was really bad at playing the violin, too. I remember my parents always makingme practice, and my violin teacher always telling me to practice. I don’t know why. I just hated playing the violin.