Misfortune Motivated Doctoral Student to Achieve
Rutgers’ Xianyi Gao determined early that his education was critical to his family’s well-being
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‘I knew it was not right for my mother to have to go to a foreign country to work, so I started believing that if I had the knowledge, I could change my life and help out my family.’– Xianyi Gao, doctoral student, computer engineering
Life was simple growing up in a small village in Fujian Province, Southeast China. But despite having few of life’s comforts, Xianyi Gao remembers being happy as an only child, and particularly being constantly intrigued and entertained by how much his father knew about science, mathematics and numerous other subjects despite having just a high school education.
Though his father worked two jobs most of the time, he built a special bond with his son, piquing his curiosity at every opportunity.
“I remember always asking him questions and he knew the basics of chemistry and physics,” recalls Gao, now 28 and nearing his doctorate in computer engineering at Rutgers, focused on human-computer interaction. “He seemed to know everything in the world. And he would tell me interesting stories that helped me learn mathematics long before most children my age.”
His father’s nurturing helped create a strong foundation for his son, who overcame problems communicating in English and has maintained years of uninterrupted perfect grades as a collegiate undergrad and graduate student.
But when he was nearly 8, Gao was forced to grow up in a hurry as his family’s private world collapsed after his father was diagnosed with epilepsy.
“He started having serious seizures,” he says. “We would be eating dinner and with his hands moving freely, food would be thrown to the floor. I remember being really scared.”
Life suddenly became extremely complicated and filled with anxiety. Gao’s father was forced to stop working construction, and, though she had never worked before, his mom made a startling decision to move to the United States, where her brother lived, in search of better opportunities to support the family while her husband and son remained temporarily in China.
“I matured at a pretty young age,” Gao said. “I had to take care of things. Take care of my father, clean and cook.”
His mom’s moving far away forced Gao to figure out what direction he wanted his life to take so that he could help his family deal with their misfortune.
“I knew it was not right for my mother to have to go to a foreign country to work,” he says, “so I started believing that if I had the knowledge, I could change my life and help out my family.”
As he monitored his father’s medical care following his mother’s departure, Gao attended the region’s leading high school, triggering an interest in computer science and a series of significant academic achievements that have continued to this day.
After high school, Gao moved with his father to the U.S., reuniting the family, and enrolled in Middlesex County College, near Rutgers, for two years. To help pay tuition, he worked in manual labor, masking his weak command of English. Soon, scholarships and the steady stream of perfect grades began, easing his transfer to Rutgers, where his 4.0 GPA continued as he completed a bachelor’s degree in electrical and computer engineering.
As a graduate student pursuing research interests in mobile computing, crowdsourcing, user privacy and security engineering, Gao joined the lab of Janne Lindqvist, whose focus is human-computer interaction. He quickly found himself immersed in prominent research and scholarship opportunities and was admitted into several academic honor societies.
He’s been the lead author on three published papers describing the results of collaborative research studies. One project found that many computer users have significant misconceptions about “private” browsing.
On another paper, Gao had a major role in research tracking the locations of automobile drivers, using speed data and an algorithm the team developed, suggesting that insurance companies may be using monitoring devices that violate a driver’s expectation of privacy.
The third paper illustrates the tradeoffs of using the digital currency Bitcoin.
As his talents as a researcher have been evolving, the outlook for Gao’s other major concern – his father – has also brightened. He underwent high-risk brain surgery about two years ago and his epilepsy condition is now better contained. Being with family has also been a big help.
Gao is excited about what the future holds once he completes his five-year doctoral program next year and becomes able to provide his family needed financial support.
“I am trying to evaluate academic or industry research opportunities available to me,” Gao says. “I figured out the path and now I am on it.”
For media inquiries, contact Jeff Tolvin at 908-229-3475 or jeff.tolvin@rutgers.edu.