A little more about me :)

A few places, people, and things that have shaped me so far.

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Born in California 🇺🇸

A young Nicole in a hooded jacket and reindeer-pattern sweater, standing on a sidewalk in a California neighborhood.

Moved to Korea when I was four,

and grew up here 🇰🇷

I was pretty introverted and a bit of a model student — organized, liked knowing what I had to do, and generally kept track of things.

Sejong Academy of Science and Arts

one of eight gifted high schools in Korea

I spent three years going deep into math and science, often at a university level. Research was a big part of school too — I first worked on an encryption method using normal vectors in 3D geometry, which later became a patent, and after that moved into quantitative trading strategy research.

Seoul National University

Industrial Engineering · 2024–present

Seoul National University is Korea's flagship national university.

I chose Industrial Engineering because it is basically about making systems work better using math, data, optimization, and decision-making. It felt like a good fit for the way I think, and it has been.

University is also where I started saying yes to a lot more things, trying things I hadn't done before, and meeting people I probably never would have met otherwise.