a disgusting photo of matt

👋 hey there! 👋

my name is matthew wang

but you can call me matt 😉

I (mostly) like computers.
I love love love teaching.
I want to teach computer science better.
(putting equity and inclusion first)

currently:

previously:

  • outreach co-chair, neurips
  • president @ ACM at UCLA
  • swe intern @ czi, facebook, adobe, aws, booz allen
  • cs + math-econ @ ucla

stalk me:   GitHub Résumé

a bit more about matt

I'm a current M.S. student in computer science at UCLA, where I also did my undergrad in CS + Math-Economics. I'm particularly interested in the intersection between computer science and education. Can we teach people better with computers? Can we design computers to be easier to learn? How does accessibility and equity play into this?

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are core to everything I do.

I (mostly) enjoy working with computers: websites, programming languages, apps, backends, embedded systems, compilers, games, machine learning, data science, cloud computing, you name it! I'm also a huge fan of open-source - I'm always on GitHub!

I'm really passionate about education and outreach. My undergraduate career was focused on equitable access to CS education - through ACM at UCLA, Teach LA, BEAM, and community-building at UCLA. Kids are mostly fun to work with.

I am still occasionally interested in applied economics, particularly in development, education, healthcare, and antitrust.

In my spare time, I like to read, listen to music, and write a bad blog.

pun fact


experience & work

I occasionally do things, usually with computers and education. Here are the big ones.



SWE Intern at Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (2022)

beep bop booped in the Education Initiative; did some Slack automation, some Rails, some large-scale Ruby + Sorbet codegen & upgrading, and some open-source maintenance; wrote about an open-source contribution on CZI's Medium.

SWE Intern at Facebook (2021)

Worked to unify four different Hack-based data sources into one unified UI. Juggled React, GraphQL/Relay, and Hack/PHP work - all at Facebook scale!

SRE Intern at Adobe (2021)

In a team of 3, I built a system to save money running Kubernetes clusters; the projection for our MVP was $330k/year!

click for more on me at adobe

The big focus of my role was implementing a cluster autoremediation system, to find issues in Kubernetes clusters and try to automatically resolve them. Our initial focus was on more graceful autoscaling (and scale-down). I:

  • implemented the aforementioned auto-remediation system to resolve Kubernetes cluster resource issues (JavaScript, AWS: Lambda, DynamoDB, SQS, PromQL, Azure DevOps
  • system projected to save $330k/year across 30 AWS clusters; easily extendable to Azure + plug-and-play with other remediation
  • ran a variety of manual cluster scaling experiments and collected + presented data (Kubernetes, Splunk, Grafana, PromQL)

SDE Intern at Amazon Web Services (2020)

I was the sole intern in charge of my project for the S3 Index Engine team: a system to enable anomaly detection for thousands of internal metrics.

click for more on me at aws

While I can't tell you everything I did at AWS, here's a general overview of what my role was:

  • wrote overall design document, performed user research, and presented top-level design + financials to team
  • implemented automated data pipeline to ingest, filter, and upload 10k metrics/5 min (Java, AWS: SNS, SQS, Lambda, DynamoDB, CloudWatch, CloudFormation)
  • performed user research, designed & developed multi-paged dashboard + wizard + webservice (React, Java)
  • presented final solution to management and team

SWE Intern at Booz Allen Hamilton (2019)

As a Summer Games 2019 Intern, I was part of a team of five interns that developed a pocket-sized embedded system to combat human trafficking by hacking into boats! We apparently did well enough to staff a maritime security-focused hackathon.

click for more on me at booz allen

As the sole software developer of the team, I performed several key responsibilities:

  • Reverse-engineered closed-source NMEA 2000 protocol by analyzing network traffic
  • Parsed & decoded data live ship data from sensors to CLI & over-the-air server (C)
  • Fabricated data to disable devices and spoof GPS, navigation, AIS, autopilot (C)
  • Developed GUI to control embedded system over TCP (React, Electron)
  • Presented solution to senior leadership at McLean headquarters
  • Supported at Hack the Machine, 700+ participant hackathon on maritime security

SWE Intern at AudioNotch (2017)

AudioNotch is a web and mobile app that's designed to help people who suffer from tinnitus through experimental audio therapy. I put my hand in a lot of different baskets, mainly focusing on creating a new mobile app and updating their web application.

click for more on me at audionotch

I juggled several different roles as the sole intern:

  • Developed mobile app for iOS & Android with Ionic + Angular + Cordova stack (authentication flow, audio manipulation w/ DSP, data visualization, in-app purchases)
  • Implemented server-side REST API and data protocol for mobile app logic (Django)
  • Refactored JS web application, halving bundle size (JS WebAudio API, jQuery)
  • Redesigned website & blog to be mobile-responsive and ARIA-compliant (CSS, PHP)
  • Ran A/B tests on landing page designs and CTAs (Google Analytics Experiments)
  • Revamped products increased firm revenue by over 300% in the next three months


President at ACM at UCLA (2021-2022)

I ran the largest tech organization on campus, with 250+ officers and 1500+ event attendees. It's hard to describe my role; I juggled a safe return-to-campus, EDI advocacy work, some web dev, some event planning, helped my officers grow, and tried my hand at making the tech community as inclusive and accessible as possible.

Eventually, I might write about this experience.

President, Lead Dev at ACM Teach LA (2018-2021)

ACM Teach LA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit at UCLA that aims to provide equitable access to K-12 computer science education in Los Angeles. I've worn a lot of hats at the club, from software developer, to curriculum development and instructor, to leading a dev team, and most recently, the president of the club. It's the thing I'm the most proud of at UCLA.

click for more on me at teach la

I got started in 2018 as a web developer for Teach LA, and promptly fell in love. I last served as the president of the club (2020-2021), which let me handle a broad scope of activities:

  • handled transition to fully virtual learning: organizing synchronous and asynchronous classes, one-off events, meetings, and recruitment
  • spearheaded learning labs, an internally-developed set of interactive web modules; acted as a PM, lead dev, and supporting dev for different projects
  • continued to (asynchronously) teach our AI & ML course at North Hollywood HS
  • kickstarted a new React Native web and mobile app development course
  • expanded internal and external transparency through public financial & EDI reports and open-sourcing our curriculum
  • supported and managed our 15-person board and our 50+ members
  • acted as the interim dev team director for Fall & Winter 2020 (see below)

Prior to that, I was the dev team director in 2019-2020, which was a great opportunity to grow our team. Here's what I did:

  • managed, trained, and led code review with a team of 15+ student developers, the majority of which were new to web development
  • kickstarted work on interactive web modules to teach cybersecurity, networking and machine learning concepts; eventually became learning labs
  • architected and developed React + Redux frontend for online Code IDE
  • wrote middleware to handle user data actions with React, Express, Firebase
  • developed static site to enhance org's online presence with Jekyll
  • wrote and updated tests written with Enzyme + Jest
  • integrated CI/CD into our development workflow (GitHub Actions, Travis CI)
  • taught our brand-new AI & ML course at North Hollywood HS


smaller experiences & work

click for my small stuff. but only if you want to!

  • I was recently the inaugural Outreach Chair for NeurIPS 2022, along with Jessica Forde. We bootstrapped an outreach program from scratch that brought 200 students to the conference.
  • I helped out with QWER Hacks, America's first collegiate LGTBTQIA+ hackathon. In 2021, I led workshops on React, Firestore, and the education track. In 2020, I led workshops on web development (with React + Firebase) and EdTech. I passed on the torch of leading workshops in 2022, but still am involved!
  • I advised and volunteered for BEAM, a science outreach club at UCLA. I help with site visits, curriculum planning, and have written lesson plans for coding in Scratch and programming robots. I also set up their website!
  • Before COVID, I was a UCLA MakerSpace technician, teaching classes on 3D printing, laser cutting, t-shirt fabrication, graphic design, and electronics.
  • Over Summer 2020, I taught a 15-hour virtual crash course on web development with my good friend Leo. Check out the notes on GitHub!
  • Won IDEA Hacks 2019 with pop 'n lock, a student-card enabled smart lock. Proved that student cards were duplicatable in the process. Code on GitHub!

If you want to see contributions I make to open-source, fragments of software projects, or just how addicted I am to GitHub, you can check out my GitHub profile.

Want a more formal breakdown? These might help:

Résumé LinkedIn GitHub

not enough, or more questions? shoot me an email at matt@matthewwang.me


other misc. things about me

(to be honest, I'm surprised you're still here)

education

I'm currently a Computer Science Masters student at the University of California, Los Angeles. I graduated from UCLA in 2022 with two degrees: a B.S. in Computer Science, and a B.S. in Math-Economics.

Prior to UCLA, I grew up and went to high school in Toronto, Canada. I did competitive debating and Model UN, taught computer science, math, and robotics, and dabbled in event planning, journalism, and design.

coursework (undergrad)

If you're interested, here are the classes that I've taken at UCLA, by area of focus.

computer science

  • data structures and algorithms (CS 32, CS 180)
  • operating systems (CS 111)
  • networking (CS 118)
  • programming languages (CS 131)
  • compilers (CS 132)
  • data mining (CS 145)
  • machine learning (CS M146)
  • computer systems architecture (CS M151B)
  • artificial intelligence (CS 161)
  • automata theory (CS 181)
  • quantum programming [grad class] (CS 239)
  • computer organization (CS 33)
  • software engineering capstone (CS 130)
  • intro to C++ (CS 31)
  • software construction lab (CS 35L)
  • digital logic (CS M51A) and digital logic lab (CS M152A)

proof-based math

  • linear algebra (Math 115A)
  • real analysis (Math 131A/B)
  • optimization (Math 164)
  • probability theory (Math 170A/B)
  • stochastic processes (Math 171)
  • financial mathematics (Math 174E)

economics

  • intermediate micro (Econ 11)
  • econometrics (Econ 103, Econ 103L)
  • advanced micro (Econ 101)
  • advanced macro (Econ 102)
  • feminist economics (Econ 113)
  • intergenerational poverty (Econ 133)
  • labor economics (Econ 150)

general (engineering) math

  • single-variable calculus (Math 31A/B)
  • multivariable calculus (Math 32A/B)
  • linear algebra (Math 33A)
  • differential equations (Math 33B)
  • intro to discrete math (Math 61)

misc

  • engineering ethics (ENGR 188EW)
  • engineering physics (Physics 1A, 1B, 1C, 4AL)
  • digital cultures and societies (INFO STD 20)
  • artificial intelligence and justice (INFO STD 180)
  • intro linguistics (LING 1)
  • American history (HIST 13C)
  • introduction to statistics (STATS 10)
  • english composition (ENGCOMP 3)

My favourite classes have been programming languages (CS 131), automata theory (CS 181 w/ Sahai), intergenerational poverty (ECON 133), discrete math (Math 61), and intro to linguistics (LING 1). Would highly recommend!

"achievements"

I had fun, which is what matters.

  • Russell R. O'Neill Distinguished Service Award 2022
  • Chancellor's Service Award 2022
  • Engineering Achievement Award in Student Welfare 2022
  • Outstanding Chapter Website 2022 (for my work at ACM)
  • Guru Krupa Foundation Centennial Scholar 2021-2022
  • Frank Peters Scholarship for Engineering Recipient 2020-2021
  • Eric & Peggy Johnson Scholarship In Engineering Recipient 2019-2020
  • Muriel K. and Robert B. Allan Fund Recipient 2018-2019
  • UCLA Achievement Scholarship Recipient 2018-2022
  • IDEA Hacks 2019 Best Project
  • USC Debate IV 2019 Champion, Top Team, Top Speaker
  • UC Berkeley Debate IV 2019 Champion
  • TIME Magazine's Person of the Year in 2006

some favourites & recommendations

You know, showing a bit of personality.

  • books: Poor Economics, Paradox, Justice, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Pachinko, 1984
  • albums: To Pimp A Butterfly, Helplessness Blues, Acid Rap, Emotion, SATURATION II, Nothing Happens, Without Warning, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, NOT TiGHT, Tradition
  • programming language: both JS and anything not JS
  • code editor: VSCode or vim
  • city: Toronto
  • food: Japanese curry
  • soft tabs, two spaces (but really, whatever the project convention is)
  • video games: Portal 2, Stardew Valley, Slime Rancher, Antichamber, Mini Metro, Hades
  • spelling of favourite: refer to left
  • reader: you 😉