Alumni News

Letters from Former NTT International Researchers

from Wenbin Jiang:

It has been three years since I left NTT Musashino R&D Center to continue my PhD studies with Prof. Bowers at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). Whenever I meet people from Japan at conferences, it reminds me of when I was at NTT. I feel proud of having worked at a lab with so many distinguished researchers. My only regret is that I didn't do a very good job at studying Japanese during my stay.

Santa Barbara, where I am now, is a well-known vacation resort. It will never be too hot or too cold and don't expect any snow. If it rains, it is good fortune to the residents of Santa Barbara. Sunbathing at the beach and just enjoying life is not even considered a uxury here. However, it seems that I have enjoyed staying in the lab so much that I had not realized the real beauty of the city until recently.

We have many visiting Japanese researchers here at UCSB, including one from NTT Basic Research Labs. I believe most of them have really enjoyed the life here. After one or two years stay in our "resort", they are fully recovered from their tiredness and ready to go back for their next round of hard working. If "discipline" was the important quality I learned during my stay in Japan, "efficiency" is what I have learned >from visiting Japanese during my stay at UCSB. For example, I was really amazed that three Japanese researchers could drive more than 7,000 miles in 3 weeks, travelling through half of the United States and Canada, covering all the major scenery. I have to admit I even don't know about many of the wonderful places right here in the city of Santa Barbara after more than three years' stay at UCSB. I felt so ashamed to learn several days ago from TV that there is a great museum at UCSB with a number of beautiful collections. Why didn't I know this before?

Nevertheless, I am not in a position to say if I have wasted these precious three years. I have gained something important -a PhD degree-, and a lovely daughter, too. I shouldn't be too ambitious.

My address is:
Electrical and Computing Engineering Dept.
University of California at Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California 93106 U.S.A.
Tel: +1 805 893 7181
Fax: +1 805 893 3262
E-mail: jiang@nemesis.ece.ucsb.edu

from Farzin Mokhtarian:

As you may recall from my last message on the global-list, I left Japan around end of September. It is now around end of October and I thought I would let you know about my new situation. We moved back to Vancouver, Canada and by now we are more or less settled here. My ex-supervisor was kind enough to give me a postdoc so that I would have the chance to look at starting a company and also consider other possibilities. Vancouver greeted us with a lot of good weather which is unusual for this time of year. We missed aspects of Japan but we also disscovered that Vancouver has grown a lot during our absence. There are several new Japanese restaurants now. The size of the local Iranian community has also grown which means that there are more associated cultural activities and that is exciting!

My address is:
Department of Computer Science
University of British Columbia
Vancouver B.C.
CANADA V6T 124
E-mail: mokhtar@cs.ubc.ca

If you like to drop me a line. Good luck to everyone.