On a crisp day over Fall Break, Anthony Etim and I met at the benches outside Pauli Murray, or, alternatively, by the Food Trucks (for those who aren't familiar with the undergraduate college layout!) One of the most astonishing things about Anthony is that he graduated from high school in Nigeria at 16, and is starting his PhD in Electrical Engineering here at Yale at the youthful age of 21. Talk about genius! He received his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering - with a minor in Computer Science - from Villanova University in Pennsylvania, taking six classes every semester.
For his PhD, Anthony is working on FPGA security with his adviser Dr. Jakub Szefer. FPGA security is far more complicated than I could ever hope to make sense of, but the gist of it is that it is a kind of computer hardware security that involves working with logic gates and looking at attacks and defenses… If it sounds complex, it's probably because you need to be an Electrical Engineering PhD student to understand. The broad name for Anthony's research right now is “Computer Architecture”, which sounds amazingly difficult and fascinating!
Anthony also enjoys finding new things to try, like dabbling in learning Korean, playing Basketball, exercising some photography skills, learning how to play the guitar, and joining the archery club. And one day he thinks he might like to own his own business.
But for the time being he's trying to “just have fun”. Sounds like a plan!
Anthony Erin, first year PhD candidate Electrical Engineering, from Nigeria
#oiss #yale #humansofOISS #college #phd #doctorate #electrical #engineering #nigeria
