I'm Derek. I was born in Sichuan, China, which is known for its pandas, mountain ranges, and spicy foods. I moved to the US when I was just under two years old, and grew up in College Station, Denver, and various parts of Houston. Elementary school is interesting when you've attended four of them. My path towards data science was fairly winding and non-traditional.
I began learning violin in elementary school then started writing my own music in middle school. It wasn't very good. Fortunately, I got better at composing and received my bachelor's degree in music composition and minor in music recording from the University of Southern California .
Since USC's music school was right next to its film school, I became interested in film scoring and wrote music for dozens of student films, which landed me an internship with Bear McCreary of Battlestar Galactica and The Walking Dead fame as well as a job as Randy Newman 's technical assistant on The Princess and the Frog and Toy Story 3 . Don't let Randy's chipper Disney tunes fool you; his real music stings .