Sawyer: About



I am a second-year Ph.D. student and an NSF fellow in the bioengineering department at Caltech. I studied Mechanical Engineering at MIT as an undergraduate and did my thesis at the Media Lab on ink-jet printed electronics, and did my Master's Thesis on patterning cell cultures of neurons (see my portfolio page). I grew up mostly in Los Osos, a small town that's remarkably far away from any big cities, given that it's in California. I also lived in Sopchoppy, Florida for a year with my dad, in Guatemala for a year when my mom moved there, and Verona, Italy for a few months as an intern. I used to speak some Spanish, and then that kind of got replaced by Italian because it's so similar, but now the Spanish is coming back because I'm living in Los Angeles. I have never played golf, I have eaten raw octopus (who hasn't these days?), and sometimes when I tell jokes I mess up the punchline. Currently I am into playing soccer, bouldering, making things, outer space stuff like those mars rovers from JPL, and bio-inspired robotics.
About my name, Sawyer Buckminster Fuller
because I get asked about it

I am named after Richard Buckminster Fuller. I have no known relation to him, my dad just has his same last name, and I guess I got both his last and his middle name. He popularized the geodesic dome as an energy and resources-efficient architectural device to enclose space. He was also into engineering motivated by social conscience, entrepreneurship, philosophy, mathematics, and he wrote a lot of books (see, for example, Critical Path and Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth). I guess he was into a lot of different things, and he had grand visions for ways to improve the condition for a lot of people. Those are both pretty cool things about him. The buckminsterfullerenes, a class of carbon compounds including carbon nanotubes, were also named after him because of their resemblance to his geodesic domes. I don't look like a geodesic dome, but I guess I got the same honor. I got to meet him when I was about 4 years old, that was pretty cool.

Last updated 4.19.06