I was born in Dresden, Germany. Back then, it was known as “Deutsche Democratic Republic (DDR)”, also referred to as East Germany. In the 90’s, after fall of the Soviet Union and German reunification, “western” technology became available in East Germany, including dozens of TV channels influenced by the US, who helped rebuild West-Germany after World War II. My dad, who did not speak English, was enthusiastic about emerging consumer electronics such as VCRs, electronic watches, arcade games and so on. Out of curiosity, I helped him figure out how to use those devices with my limited English skills and a dictionary when I was about 10 years old. Siemens sponsored one school in each district with a computer lab. Luckily, my school had one. I always got excited sitting behind those ancient machines playing with Windows DOS and Windows 3.11. As a kid, I was fortunate to have toured Siemens’ fab during the seventh grade and its Infineon fab in the tenth grade. That was my first exposure to semiconductors. I started my journey into image sensors in 2008, a year before I kicked-off my dissertation at Fraunhofer IMS in conjunction with Uni Duisburg-Essen. Fraunhofer Society is Europe’s largest R&D organization with over 29,000 employees aiming to support small and medium size companies in Germany. About 2,000 of these researchers focus on microelectronics. After my first conference talk, IMEC offered me a post doctorate position. IMEC is Europe’s largest semiconductor-centric R&D lab with now over 4,000 employees. It granted me so much opportunity to grow. However, after having worked in research labs for a decade, I wanted some changes in my life. During my time at IMEC, I attended international conferences and visited customers abroad and I quickly grew fond of the lovely weather and beautiful landscape in California. OMNIVISION is one of the top three global leaders in the image sensor domain, serving mobile, automotive, medical, security and surveillance and emerging markets such as AR/VR. I was glad to receive the job offer and started this new adventure at OMNIVISION in 2018. I joined the company just before it went public. A year or two later we are now traded on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and are making significant investments into novel product developments. OMNIVISION recently also strengthened its presence in Europe with a new R&D center in Belgium, and adding capacity to the Norwegian R&D center. We are growing fast and we do have an ambitious roadmap. Now I am happily in my fourth year of service working on exciting new technologies in the CTO office. At OMNIVISION, I appreciate all the true veterans in the field who have dedicated 10, 20, 30 years or more to this industry and strive to move it forward every day. We have so many talented people whose publications I’ve been following for years. I believe that one’s life, to a large extent, is shaped by the people around us. I feel blessed to be working with all these veterans while making my own contributions at OMNIVISION.

I am a Sr. Procurement Specialist at OMNIVISION. In this role, I work independently and interact with employees from almost all functional departments. My daily tasks require attention to detail, and they keep me occupied and challenged. At times, I also handle even more challenging special projects. After receiving my MS degree from the University of Southern California, I worked for a couple of companies but I did not stay long at my first two jobs. OMNIVISION has been my third employer since 2016. I have enjoyed working at OMNIVISION for over five years because I love the people and the company culture here. My colleagues are always supportive when I need assistance. Not to mention the annual summer picnics, holiday parties, and departmental team building events throughout the year. I especially like to cosplay in the company’s annual Halloween Party. As a fan of Japanese anime, I once dressed myself as Hatsune Miku, a virtual 16-year-old girl with long, turquoise twin tails in the first of a series of Vocaloids, singing voice synthesizers. I picked that character because I like to sing. I was so glad that I won the Best Individual Costume Award for the character. During the pandemic, when working from home, we were still able to hold virtual team building events and socialize every now and then. The feeling of togetherness is great. I have good work-life balance here at OMNIVISION. My hometown is Shaoxing, China, a beautiful city not too far from Shanghai. It is well known for its wine and rich culture. Writer, poet, and leading figure in modern Chinese literature Lu Xun was born there too. Like many immigrants, I came to the US to pursue higher education after I completed my Bachelor’s degree in China. Today, I am proud to be part of the community at OMNIVISION, where I have the pleasure to work with talented and nice people. Over the years, the company has grown from private to public and become one of the largest semiconductor companies in the world. Our future is promising.

When I was 13, my parents decided to move from Taipei, Taiwan to the United States. We first lived in Fremont, CA and then settled in Fresno, CA. The most important thing for me then was to master the English language so I could excel in school and adapt to the new environment. Math was my favorite subject and I was good at it, allowing me to regain confidence at school. In my senior year of high school, I joined the school’s robotic team. Our team entered the FIRST Robotics Competition and won the 2004 Rookie All Star Award. During my first two years of college, I continued to mentor the robotic team, providing programming and management support. After I graduated from college, my parents moved back to Taiwan. Two years later, after receiving my Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from UCLA, I also went back to Taiwan and started my career there. I have to say that I experienced culture shock when I worked in Taiwan as an R&D engineer. The way projects were handled and the management style were very different from that in the US. Tempos were very fast though. While in Taiwan, I developed an interest in the Intellectual Property (IP) field and transferred my career path to IP, first as a Patent Engineer, and then an IP consultant. These experiences have given me insights on patent prosecution and IP operations which I found most interesting. I passed the USPTO Patent Bar Exam and became a Certified Patent agent in 2015. I returned to the United States in 2017 and gladly joined OMNIVISION’s IP team as a Patent Engineer in 2018. I work with engineers to learn about their inventions, conduct patent searches for patent review, handle patent prosecution, and develop patent landscape. I enjoy exploring image sensor technology and building pixel structure and process related patent portfolios. Working with the General Counsel to provide technical analysis and strategize litigation defense is a privilege. I gain legal insights and hands-on experiences on IP operations. I appreciate our team’s working dynamics very much as I am given flexibility and autonomy on ways to accomplish my assigned tasks. At the same time, I receive great support from the team. Such dynamics and mutual respect organically creates a harmonious and productive working environment. In my free time, I like to build LEGOtm sets. I fell in love with LEGO when my mom bought me my first set at age four. Putting LEGO pieces together to build a model is relaxing to me. It is almost like meditation. So far I have built models of a typewriter, piano, race cars, you name it!

I was born in Southern California and raised in Hawaii, where I spent a lot of time outdoors, mostly at the beach and in the water. It was a fun place to grow up. I left Hawaii after high school to attend Santa Clara University to study electrical engineering. I also minored in Japanese. While in college, I spent a semester abroad studying at Sophia University in Tokyo while living with a Japanese family. It was a great experience. Later in my career, I returned to grad school, attending night classes at Santa Clara to receive an MBA. In my first job out of school, I was an FAE at Toshiba Semiconductor. After several years, I decided to try the startup experience. I jumped around to a few different companies, and eventually ended up as an Field Applications Engineer at Foveon, where I was first introduced to image sensors. Foveon’s unique three-layer sensor was cool technology, but had limitations and unfortunately the company was not successful. As Foveon began to wind down operations, I looked elsewhere and a friend referred me to the Sales team at OMNIVISION. When I started in 2008, OMNIVISION was a public company on the NASDAQ stock exchange. A major account was just starting to take off with one of our first BSI sensors, the OV5650. It was an exciting time. In 2013, I stepped away to help my brother organize his small business. In 2018, my brother’s company was doing well when my former manager at OMNIVISION contacted me. The timing was right and I was ready to return to the corporate world. OMNIVISION is now a public company on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, most of our sensors are BSI, and I am working with a new hot North American company. I have been fortunate at OMNIVISON to work on two exciting accounts over the years. Both customers are challenging at times, and a little stressful, but they also push us to be better. I appreciate the people at OMNIVISION. I think the leadership team is a smart group of people that operates with integrity. In addition, the supporting teams at OMNIVISION are great. I never feel alone when working with a customer, which is reassuring when facing inevitable stressful situations. With this team, I expect that OMNIVISION will continue to push the envelope in imaging, machine vision, display and other technologies. I hope to continue for many more years, helping customers integrate these technologies into exciting and innovative products. I have been married for over 18 years and am a very proud “girl dad” with 2 smart, strong, beautiful awesome daughters that do well in school and crush it on the soccer field and volleyball court. My girls keep me busy, but when I have free time, I enjoy woodworking. I once made a 15-foot boat out of cedar that I continue to take out on the San Francisco Bay. At some point when I have more time, I hope to get back to big woodworking projects, maybe even another boat.