Well, that's me in the picture, trying to fly (I'm still learning) :)

I was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, but my family moved to Harare, Zimbabwe when I was 8 years old, and I grew up there, until I moved to the U.S. for university when I was 17. I've been at Oregon State University (OSU) for 3 years now, and have reached the ripe, old age of 20.

Besides studying too much, I also work at one of the computer labs on campus, and at the wireless helpdesk. I am also part of the International Cultural Service Program (ICSP), and if that website looks suspiciously similar to this one, that is because I made both of them :) As part of the ICSP, I receive tuition remission in exchange for doing cultural presentations about Bulgaria and Zimbabwe in the communities around OSU. My junior year, I was also an OSU College of Engineering ambassador, working on engineering recruitment and retention activities mostly targeting women and minorities.

And now, here I am; it's summer 2005 and I am a DMP participant sitting in a grad student office(!) at the fancy Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science and Engineering at University of Washington (UW), in beautiful Seattle, Washington! It's all very exciting, and I am very happy to be here.