The Alumni Magazine for Worcester Polytechnic Institute. (WPI)
Issue link: http://wpialumnimag.epubxp.com/i/277771
Spring 2014 37 for school in the U.S., like my father, who left Thailand to attend school in Germany when he was 16. He gave me a huge amount of advice to prepare myself. The language barrier was inevitable, even though I studied English from grade school to high school. Read- ing and writing English wasn't too diffcult then, but speaking the language took some getting used to. How was your experience at the Bangkok Project Center? Very fruitful. We did a joint research project with Chulalongkorn University, the leading institution here. Our project focused on Bangkok's air pollution and how it affected the health of citizens. Sustainable development remains a challenge for Thailand, in part because policy makers often rely only on economic information. There isn't the same level of empirical data on health, social, and environmental impacts from developmental policies. Fostering and strengthening epidemiological research in Thailand can pro- vide the necessary perspective for policy development. I learned a lot through the empirical research we did, and I think, to a certain extent, the city has used what we contributed. You were an industrial engineering major. Do you fnd your WPI education helps you in business? Industrial engineering is a good founda- tion, especially when you are involved in decision making. It gives a solid framework for organization decisions, as it teaches a more structured approach. Industrial engineering also helps overcome a "com- plexity ceiling," which is characterized by a mismatch between the sophistication of organizational decision-making practices and the complexity of the situations. An IE background can be thought of as bringing advanced analytics techniques to the desk- top of the non-expert decision maker. En- gineering, in general, builds on the insight that it is possible to design the decision it- self, using principles previously used for de- signing more tangible objects like bridges and buildings. My engineering education helps me think more clearly, see things more vividly, and process them more constructively. I tend not to make any decisions based on emo- tion but rather through a scientifc method. Same thing applies to my personal life. Do you see opportunities for a school like WPI to increase its presence in Asia, and in Thailand specifcally? With globalization, the world is much smaller these days, and an integral part of surviving lies on local knowledge, international ex- perience, and global vision. This speaks to opportunity here. I no- ticed that many western institutions have begun a presence here in the Asian region, and Thailand was not left out of the thinking. So my answer is "Yes"—I believe that WPI is unique enough to offer a great deal of knowledge by bringing western academic concepts to Thailand. It could be very interesting and we have so much to learn from each other. What is your favorite memory from your WPI student days? What I miss the most from my student days, believe it or not, is the food and the weather. I miss those cold morning walks to and from campus and having nice hot New England clam chowder— Christmas is kind of warm here. I also miss my student life, though I thought I had it tough then. J WPI_spring14_features1.indd 37 3/9/14 12:12 PM