Amber Yang - Young Scientist Working on Space Debris Problem

Amber Yang was one of the 30 Under 30 selected by Forbes magazine in 2018. This young scientist works towards resolving the space junk problem i.e. the debris floating in the solar system.

Childhood

Born to Joyce Teng and Brian Yang, Amber Yang is a bright kid since childhood. She developed a fondness for scientific topics from her parents as both of them were engineers.

Apart from listening to music, Amber Yang showed interest in reading about eminent scientists such as Aristotle, Stephen Hawking, etc.

Education and Work

When Amber Yang was in high school (Trinity Preparatory School), she came across a Science Program. The program was on Astrophysics held in the summer of 2016.

She attended the program and successfully calculated the orbit of an asteroid, which is not far away from the Earth.

In 2017, Amber Yang created an AI-based system at her 18th age for an International Science and Engineering Fair.

This AI system had the ability to track and predict the orbit of the space debris with high accuracy.

Amber Yang competed against 1700 other participants at the science and engineering fair to emerge as a winner.

Surprisingly, the racking system invented by Amber Yang has proved more accurate than NASA’s statistical models.

Amber Yang is, at present, a senior student at Stanford University. She is currently studying computer science and physics.

Work

In September 2017, Amber Yang kickstarted her career by founding a startup–Seer Tracking, that used artificial intelligence to recognize and learn the patterns amidst the orbits of space debris to achieve accurate predictions shortly to avoid a space junk apocalypse.

Thanks to her TEDx talk in 2016, her company got strong backing from StartX, Creative Destruction Lab, and Pear VC.

While still working hard for her startup, Amber Yang joined the Stanford Galaxy Formation & Cosmology Lab as a Data Science Research Assistant in Jan 2018 and worked there till Aug 2018.

In 2018, she also worked as a Research Intern at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, an R&D division of the United States Department of Defense.

During her stint for a brief period of three months at the MIT Lincoln Lab, she understood that she had an interest in things that overlaps both machine learning and satellite navigation.

In December 2018, she added another feather in her cap by becoming an investment partner in the Dorm Room Fund to invest in student startups.

Meanwhile, she also become the Vice-President of the Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students (BASES) in May 2019 and served it till June 2020.

In June 2019, she got the 8VC Fellowship and a golden opportunity to meet top entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley.

Soon, she joined the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and worked as a Machine Learning Research Intern till June 2020.

Apart from focusing on her studies, the multi-tasking young scientist is also currently doing research work.

After leaving the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, she immediately joined the prestigious at the Standford Space Rendezvous Laboratory as a Machine Learning Researcher in June 2020.

Awards

2017 -Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award
2017-Featured in the 30 under 30 list force science in Forbes Magazine
CERN Award at the Intel Science & Engineering Fair
Named as a finalist for the Regeneron Science Talent Search

Amber Yang serves as an active member for the community of space start up. She also serves as member of Creative Destruction Lab.

In addition, she also works as a StartX Student in Residence program. Amber is the proud recipient of VC CS + Engineering fellowship and the Dorm Room Fund.

Amber’s work was featured in Vox Video.

She had also been a TEDx speaker and had presented her views at the 2017 MATLAB Conference and the 2019 Paris Air & Space Show.