HELLO, WORLD!My name is Cynthia. I'm currently a software engineer at Google.
Previously, I was at Stanford doing computer science related work and research. You can find me on: < LinkedIn > or contact me at: < liangcyn at gmail dot com > Scroll down to learn a bit more about me! |
Work
Current involvements:
- Working at Google as a software engineer.
- Picking up lots of volleyball again!
- Still doing art :)
- my bachelor's in Symbolic Systems (Artificial Intelligence) and my master's in Computer Science (Human-Computer Interaction) from Stanford!
- a software engineering internship at Infinitus, a startup aiming to automate routine business calls in the healthcare/medical field. I worked on conversational AI + human-computer interaction projects to lower healthcare costs and ensure patients get access to care faster.
- a software engineering internship at Google on the Ads Integrity team. I worked on computation system feature for billions of advertisements to prevent abuse from advertisers and massively parallelized metrics collection for 45 million+ daily advertisement reviews.
- a place as a 2020 Kleiner Perkins Engineering Fellow. I was originally signed as a front-end development intern at Ubiquity6, an AR/VR startup geared towards capturing and editing reality and a KP partner company, in fall 2020, but my internship has been cancelled due to COVID-19.
- an internship at Google under the Chrome Usable Security team.
- I automated tests for common spoofing vulnerabilities of URL display surfaces (Trickuri) and reported resulting in consistencies, helping protect 1+ billion Google Chrome users.
- I independently designed, prototyped, and implemented a novel way to automatically generate confusable URLs using AI (as opposed to many current systems, which are hardcoded). You can read up on confusable characters with regards to Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) here, if you're interested on why finding them is so important!
- I also fixed some bugs in Chromium, Google's open-source web browser (as you do, working on a Chrome team), led a security review for a proposed feature, and got marginally better at playing Mario Kart with the office Switch. ;)
- a Human-Computer Interaction research group at Stanford University under Professor James Landay. We looked at how narrative and user interface changes can affect behavior in a wide variety of settings; more specifically, I worked on creating a digital assistant for families in the car.
- a brand ambassadorship at The Academy of ASTEM & China Future Education, serving as an annual speaker and promotional figure to promote STEM education across China. I write promotional material, give presentations to K-12 audiences, and help out school boards with long-range educational planning. Check out a blurb about my 2018 Zhoushan experiences in Chinese here!
- a summer-long internship at Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (better known as AMD) as a co-op software engineer on the DirectX 12 team, developing Microsoft Direct3D (D3D) drivers for AMD desktop and mobile graphics systems.
- I worked on AMD's driver and Platform Abstraction Library so they would be able to render proposed Windows graphics features, internally track system stats, and remain compatible with current updates.
- I also wrote and ran tests manipulating the Windows Direct3D 11 and 12 APIs in an extremely unusual way to test driver functionality. It was one of the first times I had faced such a lack of documentation, and my first time working with Direct3D, but I managed to self-learn and implement the required tests in less than a month.
- a two-summer internship at Rutgers University's Xing Lab of Genomics as a bioinformatics researcher, where I developed and implemented a pipeline to analyze next-generation sequencing data for multiplex families and identify causal genes for inherited disorders. My project, Identifying Genes Causing Tourette Syndrome Using Whole Exome Sequencing, won first place in Bioinformatics and second place in Human Genetics at the North Jersey Regional Science Fair.
- a consulting/tutoring gig at Top 1 Education, a college readiness education institution, where I coached 5 students one-on-one for the college application process, Algebra II, the ACT, and SAT subject tests, and created a template database for the company’s college application information.
SKILLS
Languages/APIs:
- I've used C/C++, Java, SQL, Python, and HTML/CSS for my recent work at Google, as well as some internal infrastructure/tools.
- Though my team is generally focused on the backend/infrastructure level, I've had a chance to tinker with many different parts of the stack, defining, designing, building, and evaluating end-to-end work.
- I've also used React Native and LaTeX in school.
- (Speaking of languages, I am fluent in Mandarin Chinese and decently proficient in German.)
- I am familiar with Adobe Photoshop and GNU Image Manipulation Program, having used them to edit many personal projects (and inserting friends' faces onto movie stills of The Cat in the Hat), and am currently picking up Adobe Illustrator. I have also frequently worked with image drawing software like Corel Painter and online graphics editors like Canva. Check out my Art section for examples (more coming soon)!
- I have extensive experience with the Microsoft Office package, having used Excel computation functions to analyze CSV files, Powerpoint as a reliable presentation editor, Word for most of my late-night essay writing, etc.
Academics
Secondary Education:
- Some of the courses I've taken or am currently taking (*) include:
- Artificial intelligence (machine learning, deep learning, NLP): CS 224N, CS224U, CS 224W, CS 221, CS 124
- Theory (complexity theory, automata, computability theory): CS 254/254B, CS 154, CS 103
- Systems: CS 145, CS 110, CS 107
- Human-computer interaction: CS 199 (independent research), CS 247, CS 194H, CS 147, CS 47
- Math foundations (linear algebra, multivariable calculus, probability)
- Linguistics (semantics/pragmatics, psycholinguistics)
- Psychology (cognitive development, social psych)
- Design (traditional and digital)
- I graduated from North Brunswick Township High School in June 2017.
- I had a 4.9/4.0 weighted GPA (4.0/4.0 unweighted) and was valedictorian of my class.
Projects
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AWARDS
- 2020 Kleiner Perkins Engineering Fellow
- First place team at the 2019 Bay Area Google Tech Challenge
- Best Demo + Video at Stanford Human-Computer Interaction Industry Project Fair for Flutter, our React Native app (2018-2019)
- 2017 Central Jersey Academic All-Star, GMC Scholar-Athlete, National Merit Scholar
- First place in Bioinformatics and second place in Human Genetics at the North Jersey Regional Science Fair
- National Silver Medal, Scholastic Art and Writing Awards
- 3-Time Talented Young Musicians Competition Winner
Activities & hobbies
"But Cynthia," you say, "no one cares about what you do in your free time!"
"Really?" I reply.
"But how am I going to tell them that I've been on Industry Events + Marketing Board for Women in Computer Science?
"(And subsequently show them my Medium articles for WiCS?)
"Or that I'm living my childhood dreams of joining an a cappella group, O-Tone, as soprano/Vice President and singing my heart out?
"Or that I'm passionate about supporting the dorm communities as a Kimball / Okada Preassign?
"Or that I'm a huge sucker for riddles and puzzles?
"Or that I've been trying to get them to look at my art for ages now??"
"I mean...you could always just throw it in at the bottom of your website somewhere..." you mutter.
I smile triumphantly. No shoddily-created strawman wins on my turf.
"Really?" I reply.
"But how am I going to tell them that I've been on Industry Events + Marketing Board for Women in Computer Science?
"(And subsequently show them my Medium articles for WiCS?)
"Or that I'm living my childhood dreams of joining an a cappella group, O-Tone, as soprano/Vice President and singing my heart out?
"Or that I'm passionate about supporting the dorm communities as a Kimball / Okada Preassign?
"Or that I'm a huge sucker for riddles and puzzles?
"Or that I've been trying to get them to look at my art for ages now??"
"I mean...you could always just throw it in at the bottom of your website somewhere..." you mutter.
I smile triumphantly. No shoddily-created strawman wins on my turf.