Dubbed by some friends as a walking paradox, Ada is a Hong Kong native who ended up growing up amongst cows and corn in Indiana. While she lives in San Francisco, she prefers Red Lobster Cheddar Bay biscuits and Krispy Kreme over kale and açaí bowls. She is an alumnus of both Harvard and Yale (resulting in all sorts of confusion during Harvard-Yale football games) and a three-time Googler whose dream jobs have also included marine biologist, social worker, professional clown, voice actress and the next Nicholas Kristof.
“When I was two, my father passed away suddenly. One of his last wishes was for me to get an American education and go to Harvard. In 1992, when I was 7, my mom and I packed our bags and moved to Indiana, where support for immigrants was scant due to the low immigrant population. Neither my mom nor I spoke English, and my mom struggled to learn the language, so we had no income and very little community.
Since I picked up English faster, I did everything I could to take care of the two of us. At home, I served as my mom’s cultural and linguistic broker, for example translating when she was on the phone with the bank. At the same time, I threw everything I had into school, in the hope it would eventually translate into a good job that would allow me to support my mom.
After school, if I wasn’t glued to my desk at home, I was in extracurriculars I thought would make me more competitive as a college applicant — tennis, student government and newspaper, to name a few. Ultimately, I graduated first in a class more than 840 students. I still remember checking my AOL inbox in the school newspaper room when I got the acceptance email from Harvard University. I nearly fell off my chair and cried. Years later, I have degrees from Harvard and Yale University as well as meaningful work at Google, and I’d like to think I would have made my dad proud.”
