Kevin Hoang  

No, just beginning.

Trevor Shimokusu  

Sure. Well, I mean before again, I, I just want to ask you a few questions about yourself. You no problem. So are you a senior in high school?

Kevin Hoang  

Yes, I am currently in you're in high school.

Trevor Shimokusu  

Okay. Okay. And you're looking to go into mechanical engineering potentially next year

Kevin Hoang  

for undergrad.

Trevor Shimokusu  

Nice. Nice. That's great. That's great. Yeah. I was very impressed by you reaching out and asking, I don't know too many people who, who do that. So I, I really think that's impressive. Thank you. Sure. Well, I'm ready to begin anytime you are. Alright.

Kevin Hoang  

So can you start off by sharing to us a little bit about yourself in your background before entering college?

Trevor Shimokusu  

Yeah, so I'm, so my name is Trevor. She moved from Hawaii. I was born and raised in Hawaii. And yeah, growing up, I I guess I liked math and science more than other subjects. And so, like in high school, I think I wanted to do I want to become a pilot, maybe and I went into undergrad, not really knowing what I wanted to do. So this is sort of different from I think your situation in whichever more clear picture of what kind of path you want to pursue. But I had initially thought I wanted to be a pilot. And I know there. You know, there are a lot of mechanical aspects and the plane the airplane, so I thought it'd be a poor choice to go into mechanical engineering.

Kevin Hoang  

Is that how you develop your passion for mechanical engineering?

Trevor Shimokusu  

Not so much, because like going into undergrad, I didn't know like, what Mechanical Engineering really was. Like, I had a few uncles who are engineers growing up. And so I would ask, so they played a huge role in like, steering me towards engineering, like, that's how I basically knew what engineering I didn't know what it was, but I at least heard about engineering before. Yeah. And so actually, yeah, so they share their work I had, I had an idea about what they did, and I thought is really cool. But I still wanted to be a pilot going into undergrad. So I yeah, I wanted to undergrad and chose mechanical engineering, because it sounded the coolest to me.

Kevin Hoang  

Going back to you said your uncle's like, kind of inspired you what exactly do they do?

Trevor Shimokusu  

Yeah. So like, one of them is a civil engineer. And my auntie as well. She's a mechanical engineer. And then there's another Auntie was a mechanical engineer, and then another uncle who was in electrical engineering. So these are, these aren't like my blood relatives. They're like my family friends, basically. And so I talked to them a lot in high school. And I just, I was always just impressed with people that they were and by the engineering jobs that they did, for example, like the civil engineering uncle, he, he designed a road that went across the island, which like, cut down the drive time by like a half compared to the old road. So like, I would, I remember going down that road and just being like, geez, this is amazing. Like my uncle built this route. My uncle designed this road. And like, I think that's sort of like the first time I sort of realized how impactful engineering can be for society, and how much it can help people, which is ultimately I think, what drives me to continue to try to be the best engineer that I can be.

Kevin Hoang  

Thank you for sharing that. So why did you decide to pursue a PhD instead of just stopping after your undergraduate years and then just going into the industry?

Trevor Shimokusu  

Sure. So maybe this kind of leads back to, I think, an earlier question about how I developed my passion. So basically, an undergrad Yeah, I went in my freshman year, I didn't really know what engineering was like, exactly what it was I had an idea so after the first year, I like I'd say, you know, you take the general subjects and that was cool. I think I studied pretty hard and did pretty good. And then the second year, that's when he started taking the more rigorous or more specialized classes in engineering, mechanical engineering, some general classes in like electrical engineering circuits, and then statics which is a civil engineering course. But then, like that, sort of when I developed my passion, I really enjoyed the subjects. I really enjoyed like solving problems which might not be a popular opinion, but I don't know, I just I really fell in love with engineering, I think at that point. And then naturally like research, like their their undergraduate research opportunities, basically, it's very easy to get involved, you just kind of reach out to a professor you're interested in working with. And then just a simple email, like, how you reached out to me, for example, you know, it's like, you just inquire and you'll be surprised a lot of professors are very open to the idea of letting undergraduate students work in their lab. And then from there, you can get some research experience. So that's what I did. And then, I think during my sophomore to junior year, I, I participated in a research exchange program in Japan. So I got to do some research, some really cool research in Chiba. And that's where I started, like, I learned about all of the really cool equipment. I was surrounded by, of course, very motivated and smart people. And I really enjoyed the environment. So I think I carried that momentum from that summer into the next year. And, and I also found a really good mentor, my advisor, my undergraduate advisor, St. Lucia, and he was, he was an amazing, he played an amazing role in sort of shaping my perspective on research, and especially research and engineering.

Kevin Hoang  

So was your exchange program through your university?

Trevor Shimokusu  

No. So this was, this was a setup by Rice University in Houston, Texas, which is where I'm a PhD student at right now. So it was sort of like, is, well, I want to see as buried in my emails, but I think in reality, I'm just not good at checking my emails. So it was there. And yeah, there was like a flyer that was promoting it. And I saw, like, Japan research, material science, engineering and natural sciences. And I was like, Yeah, I was just very interested in that opportunity. Not only because like, of the research aspect, but because I've always wanted to visit Japan. So that's, I guess that's another perk of research and academia, or being a graduate student is that you're able to travel around the world, like last month, or a couple months ago, I was in Edinburgh, Scotland for a conference. And then also, like, worked with some collaborators at University of Edinburgh. So that was a really amazing experience. And then, yeah, that some had some conferences and Washington DC. In fact, I'm in Washington, DC right now for sort of like an internship. That's a part of my research program. And then yeah, so like, you get to travel around the world, which is, I think, a really cool thing, you get to meet a whole bunch of different people. And it's just, I think, a really mind opening experience.

Kevin Hoang  

What was your role in some of the research that you did in your undergrad years? And like, what were some of the things that you did? Exactly?

Trevor Shimokusu  

Sure. So in undergrad, I really. I really enjoyed. There's like this branch of mechanical so mechanical engineering is very broad. Yep. And so, are you familiar with thermal fluids by any chance? No. Okay. Yeah. So thermal fluids is like a cluster of classes, I think, typically, they call it like fluid mechanics, heat transfer, and thermodynamics. But those subjects, those classes are the ones that I really, really enjoyed. So in undergrad, I contacted my fluid mechanics professor, I asked to do research in his lab. And like I said, he was a great mentors. It was amazing, an amazing experience. I did research on micro fluidics. So basically, the point the idea is that you have like channels that you shrink down to length scales on the order of micrometers, like 200 micrometers as the channel width. And then you get some really interesting flow regimes in this at the at these length scales where like the fluid is very organized, flowing through the channel. You can analyze it pretty well with analytical equations. And, like there are really cool things that happen. So The it's called the Fusio freezes. That was what I did my research and undergrad on and it's basically creating electricity or like voltage drops that, that move tiny little particles and the fluid stream. And and what creates that voltage drop is a concentration gradients of, in my case co2 gas which is diffusing into the channel on one side. So, yeah, I think that was a great opportunity to see the connection between what was being taught in class, you know, those analytical equations, and then see how it is actually like, at the cutting edge of research and technology. And so one application for this could be like drug delivery, to like cancerous cells, for example, where there are like little tiny crevices that you can't exactly force fluid into, but you can create concentration gradients that can drive those drugs that you want to deliver. Deep within the cell, you have Sure.

Kevin Hoang  

Did you have like, a good understanding of thermal fluids when you first reached out to the professor? Because it's like, it can be intimidating for one to do so.

Trevor Shimokusu  

Definitely. Yeah. So no, I did not have a lot of knowledge about it, because I was actually going to fluid mechanics that semester. So before that semester started, that's when I reached out to my professor. So I hadn't taken a class, but I was very interested in it. So I'd watched a few videos on YouTube, before going into that class and reaching out to the professor. But I mean, it's nothing compared to what you actually learn in the class. And then, as you do research in the lab.

Kevin Hoang  

Yeah, for sure. So moving along, what projects have you been working on? Or What projects are you currently working on?

Trevor Shimokusu  

Right, so like, going back to this thermal fluids branch, I really liked fluid mechanics. And he I really like he transplant them with an Amex. So my PhD has been more focused on heat transfer and thermodynamics. So in particular, I'm working on developing devices that can control how heat flows from a hot body to a cold body. So the, the specific name of it is a thermal diode. So it's like a device that allows a lot of heat to flow, when one body is hot compared to the other body. But then when you make the body that was colder, when you make that harder, pull down the other side, not a lot of people flow in the opposite direction. So this, I think, has applications in like thermal energy storage, for example, if we want to charge energy, thermal energy into somebody that we want to use later on, when the energy is needed, we can release that. So like the idea is like, yeah, like it acts like a metal, like you know how metals get very hot when you heat it up on one side. And then if you touch it on another side, it gets very hot, you feel that? The idea is that, that's the forward mode, but then the reverse mode, it acts like I don't know, a refrigerator door where like, it's like insulating. And you know, you can make one side very hot, but the other side, you don't you don't feel any change in temperature at on either side. So that's the idea.

Kevin Hoang  

That's pretty interesting. You describe a challenge that you faced, like during your career and research journey, and how did you overcome it?

Trevor Shimokusu  

Um, this is a hard question. Because every day I faced like, 89 research every day. They're like challenges that pop up left and right. And it's funny because they're like, little tiny things that you would have never expected to hold up your productivity for like one out one to two hours of the day. But, I mean, maybe one way I can talk about maybe a problem that I'm facing right now with my my research and how and what steps I'm doing to overcome this. So basically, I have this device that that promotes evaporation and condensation. Inside of this devices, it's like a heat pipe. Basically, a heat pipe is like, are you familiar with heat pipes? No, not. Okay. So a heat pipe. It's like it's in your computer. It's in almost everybody's laptops. It's the whole purpose of it.

Kevin Hoang  

Is it to help cool down like the processor or whatnot?

Trevor Shimokusu  

Exactly, exactly. So like it evacuate the heat from the processor and transports it out. So a place where the fans can take over and blow it out the computer right? And what happens inside of the heat pipe is evaporation and condensation of a working fluid. So this these processes are very sensitive to non condensable gases, they really hurt the performance. So right now at NASA, I'm trying to, you know, we're redesigning a device that and a system that can get rid of all of this non condensable gases. And I think recently, we've been getting some pretty promising results in terms of its sealing capabilities to prevent the leakage of non condensable gases. And I just, I'm really appreciative of all the help and support I've received from NASA, and also, you know, my advisor who's supporting me at Rice. And is, and, and also, yeah, I just really appreciate all of the details that, you know, I never would have thought would matter. But like, as, as I was doing the redesign, it's like, there are so many little things like in mechanical design, that if you overlook, it's going to cause a problem. So like, it's been a really good learning experience to, to go through this redesign, and iron out all of the flaws that that might have been hindering the old design. So I mean, like, this is like typical. This is like a typical, like problem. And then how are you going to overcome this problem, where you have to go back, analyze the data, look at your look at all old features, design, and then go from there. So I think this is pretty representative. And I expect this to happen more in the future.

Kevin Hoang  

Yeah, for sure. Thank you for telling us about that. Challenge. And you said, you're doing research for NASA. Can you talk about your journey to work for NASA?

Trevor Shimokusu  

Yes. So it's a it's a graduate? It's a it's called NASA Space Technologies, grad graduate research opportunity. All right. And so basically, it's a, it's supporting my PhD right now. And one of the requirements is that I go to a NASA center each every year, and spend 10 weeks there to work with a collaborator or research collaborator who was assigned to us when the grant first started. And so it was a solicited project, meaning they sort of put a call out to graduate students in the nation around the nation, specifying what kinds of problems they're interested in solving. So you know, of course, my advisor, and I sat down, we thought about how our research fits with the needs of NASA, and develop the proposal. And I got it very lucky. And that's sort of what is supporting the research now?

Kevin Hoang  

Was it the NASA program that you're currently doing now? Was it like something that they selected a specific individuals based on what they were working on in their projects?

Trevor Shimokusu  

Exactly, exactly. So like, Yeah, that's exactly right.

Kevin Hoang  

That's pretty cool. You share a mentor or advisor who has greatly influenced your career or thinking.

Trevor Shimokusu  

Sure, so I definitely go back to my aunties and uncles, back home in Hawaii, the engineers who really, like placed this idea or like, they showed me how impactful engineering can be to help people's lives. Definitely them. I'd like my mentor and undergrad, my my research advisor, and my fluid mechanics, mechanics professor, he played a really big role in teaching me what research is about. And then, of course, my advisors here at Rice and anassa, my collaborators. There, they sort of inspire me because like, you know, like, oh, over the years, you get experience, you learn things, and they're just always so open about what they've learned and experienced. And I think it's very helpful for me as I develop and grow.

Kevin Hoang  

Thank you. So were your advisors, the ones that pushed you towards pursuing your PhD at Rice? And why do you choose rice over the other PhDs? universities that offer mechanical engineering?

Trevor Shimokusu  

Sure, yeah. Um, so yeah, definitely my undergraduate advisor helped me out with my research my graduate school applications. He, he, he showed me what like, research is about. And that, that sort of pushed me towards graduate school. And then when I was applying to graduate school, I remembered back to Rice University, which was, you know, the, the, they set up the program for me to go to Japan and like, a couple years earlier. And, and during this program, we went to Rice University, we toured the campus, we met some people. And I fell in love with rice at that point, like I want I, I told I remember telling people in that program, like, I just want to come back here for graduate school. And then I tried my best to make that happen. And then like, fortunately, like, while I was applying during my senior year, I, my current advisor, now he was extremely kind and open, he talked with me as I was, you know, finishing up my, my senior, senior year and undergrad, and he was just very, very supportive. So I really appreciated, appreciated that and I really enjoyed the research that he was telling me that we will do as a lab. Um, so I ended up choosing rice, because of those reasons I love to rice to begin with. And then I also thought that there's a really good match between myself and my advisor. And so that's another thing, if you're interested in grad school, at some point, I know this might be a little far away. One piece of advice that he gave us to look for the advisor, more than the project, like of course, you know, you want to do something you're interested in. But at the end of the day, like a PhD is five years long, and it's really I think, I think it'd be really tough to, to do that with someone you don't really get along with. So your PhD advisor is very important. And you should spend a lot of time thinking about what kind of person you would want to work with.

Kevin Hoang  

Was your advisor, like, majorly specific? How did you find your advisor to help you get into grad school?

Trevor Shimokusu  

Yeah, so like, the way the graduate application works is you sort of express your interests. And I think it's like a research statement. Or, yeah, it's basically just like, you're short, you're sort of advertising, we're not really advertising, but you're sort of like trying to, you're trying to find a fit between your research interests and the interests of potential advisors or potential groups that you need to do your research with pretty PhD, or you graduate your time in graduate school. So I submitted this application, and I expressed a strong interest in doing research and heat transfer thermodynamics and fluid mechanics, and like my advisor, was interested in, like those subjects specifically. And so once I submitted that application, he sort of reached out, we started talking, and then yeah, I was fortunate enough to, to join his group later that you're

Kevin Hoang  

nice. What advice would you have for younger students like myself who are in high school? Who might be interested in following a similar career path? Like you are?

Trevor Shimokusu  

Sure, I'd say just be curious about everything. Never be afraid to ask questions. Like, that's really the only way you learn. And yeah, just don't be afraid to mess up. I mess up very often. But I think, you know, that's how I learned I break a few things. And then you, you fix some of it, you don't fix the other part. But that's how you sort of learn from your mistakes. I think, like, like recently, my collaborator has told me something that really resonates with me. He said, experience is just a catalogue of mistakes. So just, I'm trying my best to embrace that trying to just do things to learn. Because I think one of my problems looking back, right, like one of the problems that I've, I think, has sort of hindered my progress or like, not hindered my progress, but you know, like, if I could go back and change I would definitely try more things and not be So scared of failing, because that's how that's how you learn.

Kevin Hoang  

Yeah, that's definitely true. Because at school, I participate in my robotics program. And we do stuff where I'm the leading, mechanical, lead. So I do the designing, and then the building of the robot. And whenever I like, make a mistake in the CAD, and then we go to cut it in the pieces all wrong. It's it's definitely hard to tell my mentor that I messed this part up. And we we have to use more resources to recut this piece. And yeah, it's it is frightening.

Trevor Shimokusu  

That Okay, yeah, that, that is frightening. But like, there's a saying it's like, fail early and often. So like, maybe you could fail before getting a cut, potentially, like, if you just fail over and over, you know, you do like interference checks and the CAD assembly file, then like, you know, I think that's a good way to simulate failures so that you can learn from them.

Kevin Hoang  

Yeah, there's a scene that my team uses, and it's to fail fast.

Trevor Shimokusu  

So yeah, exactly, exactly.

Kevin Hoang  

All right, I'm looking back at the beginning of your academic journey, what do you wish you knew, then that you know now?

Trevor Shimokusu  

I think making connections with people, so as you enter college, and you go through the engineering degree, you're going to be seeing a lot of the same people. Because they're all like, you, they're all on the same curriculum, I'd say it's good to make connections with them, because they're going to be like, the next leaders along with yourself, you know, in the world, for engineering. And so if you make strong connections with them, you can, you can build a really strong support system that I think is very, very beneficial to your growth, as you go along. As you as you go through the four years of undergrad, because classes are hard, like, yeah, like, there are concepts that are just weird, and at times, like very confusing. And like, you know, the professor only has so many hours of the day to explain them, it's good to like, understand what your peers are confused about. And then help them when he can, and let them help you when they can. And I think that will also hold true after your undergrad years as well, if even if you decide to go on to graduate school or industry straight after undergrad, it's another option as well. Right? You know, just making friends making connections, I think is an important thing that will only serve you good in the long run.

Kevin Hoang  

Yeah, definitely. Mentorship is a huge part of expanding your knowledge and just getting to know people definitely opens up opportunities. Definitely. I wanted to know, did your GPA during undergrad school matter a lot to get into grad school?

Trevor Shimokusu  

Um, yeah, yeah, does GPA is, I think, a big factor. So I know like. So like, it is flawed, I think in the fact that mechanical engineering, especially like, for example, in mechanical engineering is very broad. So there are classes that some people might not feel that interested about. And it kind of sucks that GPA is important, because that means that you need to spend just as much time on that class or even more time, because they're interested in that class, to get good grades in it. You know, in addition to the other classes that you might be more interested in, in a boat. But yeah, that's, that's, that's sort of the truth. I don't think there's like, there's been a better solution to the weight curriculum, the system that is currently in place for curriculums but yeah, I think GPA is like it's a it's a good indicator of at least a student's interest because I think it's very hard to maintain a pretty good GPA if you're not interested in the subject. So my advice to you in terms of like how you view grades is like yes, grades are important. You need to remember that what I say go into your classes wanting to just master the material and like really understand, because if you really do understand the concepts then like when when it comes time when it comes time for a test, you will like it will naturally come out on the test and I think you'll do good on those, you know, in terms of the scores. So like prioritize just learning the material understanding that answer as deep as you can. And then the GTA, I think, as a byproduct, it should follow.

Kevin Hoang  

Just out of curiosity, you said that, like, if you're not interested in a class, you can definitely affect your GPA was there? Was there a class that you specifically hated? A lot?

Trevor Shimokusu  

That's a good question. Yeah, so I didn't care for coding. That was like, during my freshman, I, the ending of my freshman year is like, in introductory class, to coding. I just didn't get it at all.

Kevin Hoang  

That's very, very similar to me. Because, like, during my freshman year, and I joined robotics, I wanted to be part of the program team. And then I sat on the computer, and I was like, I cannot do this.

Trevor Shimokusu  

Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things. I think, though, like, if you come back to it, after you beat your head against the wall about it, it Something about it just seems a lot easier later on. So like, my advice to you is, if you still like don't really care for it, just give it a chance. Like maybe, you know, a year from now, you actually love coding? I don't know. I'm not a good coder myself. But I do enjoy it. Like, I think it's fun to like, so this is, so if, what when you go into engineering next year, or when you really take that the serious engineering classes, like during junior to senior year, a lot of the problems in classes are like, given some boundary conditions. Are you given a problem statement? A setup? Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, and then what they're asking for is just like, a single number. Right? Like, what is the stress inside of this script? Yeah. Right. So with like, are you familiar with MATLAB, or other programming languages? Like simple programming languages? Like Python, MATLAB,

Kevin Hoang  

know a little bit of Java and Python? Okay. Okay. Yeah. So like,

Trevor Shimokusu  

my advice would be, like, yeah, in the homework, you turn in the sheet with like, those single numbers corresponding to each question. What as like, this is something I wish I did. Just to get more experience with, like these programming languages, try and plot and make a plot, like, in the homework question isn't asking for it, but just do it just make a plot of like, okay, so it's asking for what the stress is, inside of this group, make a plot, like a simple plot, it can be like, what is the stress inside of the screw for a diameters ranging, you know, from, I don't know, one millimeter to 10 millimeters. The problem gave you like five millimeters, for example, you calculate the the number out for that specific number, but for that specific boundary, but like, look at that, like use that equation to gain insight into how different parameters or variables in the problem affect the output. I think that's like, that's really what engineering is about. And I think that's like, that should be encouraged more in undergrad, but I don't think it is.

Kevin Hoang  

Did you? Do you currently, like use any programming in your day to day life?

Trevor Shimokusu  

Yeah, so like, I'm, I do most I do experimental work. So the programming is mostly data processing. So after you run an experiment, you have all of this raw data? And how do you like reduce that data into something meaningful? In most times, it's a graph, right? Like a bunch of plots, to analyze trends. And so like, there's a decent amount of coding that goes into processing that data. I'm not sure if it's called coding programming, but you know, you're writing a script to process that data. And then like also to control various experiment, various instruments in the experiment. Like, for example, in my heat transfer experiments, we need to control a power supply to deliver electricity through like a resistive heater. That's how we're, we're putting heat into the system. And then we also need to control like how we acquire that data. So in my case, like a lot of the times we use these devices called thermocouples, to measure the temperature, and so we need to like find a way to interface all of these different instruments to the computer and control the experiment with some program that is written in the computer.

Kevin Hoang  

Nice. So yeah, those are all the questions I had for you. I wanted to say thank you for sitting down and doing this This interview for me and I found the information that you gave me, which was very insightful. For what I have planned ahead.

Trevor Shimokusu  

Yeah, I'm, I'm looking forward to seeing what you you know what school you choose there. Do you have any schools in mind right now?

Kevin Hoang  

Oh, rice is definitely on my list along with. I live in Georgia. So Georgia Tech is also on there. Okay. Caltech, MIT, Stanford.

Trevor Shimokusu  

Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. I'm very excited to see, like, what the future holds for you. And I'd love for us to stay in touch. You know, anytime you have questions, I'm happy to get on a call, or, you know, chat in any other way. If you prefer email, that's fine. But yeah, I'm very excited for you. And, again, I'm very impressed by why you reaching out. And, like, inquiring, you know that that's like, I think that's the only way to go to learn more and yeah, just just just keep being curious. i Yeah, and I really enjoyed talking to you.

Kevin Hoang  

Yeah. So yeah. And of like, first in my family to go to college, like, you know, seeking advice from other people would definitely hopes.

Trevor Shimokusu  

Well, that's awesome. Yeah. So just just keep asking other people. Just keep asking questions. And yeah, you'll, you'll be you'll be fine.

Kevin Hoang  

All right. Thank you for talking with me. No problem. All right. All right. See you again. Bye.