Kevin Z
- Research Program Mentor

MS at Stanford University

Expertise

HCI, Computer Science, Software Eng, Arts

Bio

Hi, I'm Kevin! I grew up in the Bay Area and outside of school, I loved to paint and make films with friends. At Stanford, I discovered computer science and was excited to combine CS with my interest in the arts. As a student, I conducted research with the Human-Computer Interaction group on drones and cinematography. After graduating, I joined an early-stage startup as their first engineer and grew it from pre-seed all the way to Series B. I'm also exploring my creative interests, such as animation and filmmaking. Other hobbies include playing guitar and comics.

Project ideas

Project ideas are meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.

Inclusive Design

Autocomplete and voice control began as features for disabled users. Vint Cerf helped invent email in part to communicate with his deaf wife while at work. OCR, now used by Google Books and Translate to convert print and handwritten text to digital form, was invented to create a reading machine for the blind. Look anywhere around you and you'll find technology originally developed to help underserved populations that now benefits everyone. What can we learn when we design specifically for a single person, perhaps a dyslexic first-grader or a wheelchair-bound relative, instead of for the "average" person? Hopefully, we can improve not only their lives but the lives of everyone around them.

Coding skills

Javascript, Typescript, Node, SQL, Python

Languages I know

Mandarin, conversational

Teaching experience

- Engineering manager growing several jr engineers - Mentored college students in finding jobs, organizing events, and networking - RA in freshman dorm - Taught storytelling to elementary school students