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Unchained: Blockchain Business Forum 2024

AnderTech and the Entrepreneur Association Present:

Unchained: Blockchain Business Forum 2024

Friday, February 2, 2024
 1:30 – 6:00 p.m.

Check-in: 1:00 – 1:30 p.m.
Conference: 1:30 – 4:30 p.m.
Networking with Refreshments: 4:30 – 6:00 p.m.

Conference: Crown Auditorium in Marion Anderson Hall at UCLA Anderson  
Networking: The Grand Salon in Marion Anderson Hall at UCLA Anderson 

AnderTech & EA are proud to present the second annual Unchained: Blockchain Business Conference at UCLA Anderson!

As Anderson's marquee blockchain event, we hope to educate attendees on the latest news and trends across Web3 and crypto, establish Anderson as a place to connect emerging business talent with opportunities across the industry and strengthen Los Angeles’ position as a leader in the global Web3 space.

This year, we are ecstatic to announce a fantastic lineup of panelists who will speak about enterprise business applications, the journey of building Web3 products and businesses, and crypto and DeFi investments.

Speakers

 
Amanda Schwartz Ramirez (’10)
Amanda Schwartz Ramirez (’10)
Founder, Garden Labs; COO Advisor; Former Dapper and PayPal

Amanda Schwartz Ramirez (’10)

Founder, Garden Labs; COO Advisor; Former Dapper and PayPal

Amanda is a strategy and operations executive and CEO coach with over 15 years’ experience incubating and scaling startups, business units and functions in highly complex and emerging spaces (fintech and crypto/web3).

Most recently, Amanda stood up and led business operations, corporate strategy and program management at a hyper-growth venture-backed startup. Prior, Amanda spent almost a decade at PayPal, fueling growth in new adjacencies, including PayPal’s crypto business unit and expansion to China. With broad experience managing all aspects of company-building and scaling, Amanda now advises startup founders and executive teams through the complexities of operational, people/culture and growth challenges. Amanda also provides one-on-one coaching to support founders who are making the shift into executives/managers.

Amanda is based in Southern California, and when not working, she can be found tag-teaming with her husband while they attempt to raise three young children.

Benjamin Tsai’s (’01)
Benjamin Tsai (’01)
Co-Founder and President, Wave Digital Assets; Lecturer, UCLA Anderson

Benjamin Tsai (’01)

Co-Founder and President, Wave Digital Assets; Lecturer, UCLA Anderson

Benjamin Tsai, the president and managing partner at Wave Financial, is a trilingual financial executive with 15 years of proven success in developing global investment solutions for institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds and high-net-worth clients. He has managed profitable teams in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taipei, and served as CEO of Merrill Lynch Singapore Commodities. Subsequently at AllianceBernstein, Ben has served as senior portfolio manager for the alternative investments business across Asia. In addition to his work at Wave Financial, he invests and mentors early-stage startups in Southern California. He holds a B.S. in engineering from UC Berkeley and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, where he is currently teaching crypto finance.

Larry Pang
Larry Pang
Head of Business Development, IoTeX

Larry Pang

Head of Business Development, IoTeX

Larry Pang is the Head of Business Development at IoTeX. Larry graduated from MIT in 2013 and was formerly an Engagement Manager at Oliver Wyman, a global management consulting firm, where he completed 15+ projects for Fortune 500 companies in the Digital, Technology, and Analytics practice group. Larry joined IoTeX as part of the founding team in 2017 and has helped bootstrap IoTeX's ecosystem of developers, investors, and community members. IoTeX is the leading platform for decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN), an emerging use case of blockchain that enables people and businesses to contribute physical resources and become fractional owners in public utilities, such as connectivity, automotive, and renewable energy networks.

Luke Katz (’21)
Luke Katz (’21)
VP of Growth, Serotonin

Luke Katz (’21)

VP of Growth, Serotonin

Luke Katz (’21) is the vice president of growth at Serotonin, the leading Web3 marketing and product studio. With a deep background in strategy and business development, Luke excels in scaling Web3 companies at various stages. He also contributes as an early-stage advisor and investor, bringing invaluable insights to emerging digital enterprises.

Before his tenure at Serotonin, Luke built his expertise in digital media and advertising technology at Digitas and GroundTruth. It was here that he recognized the potential for creating a more equitable incentive system for the internet. With a foundation in economic development, he is passionate about utilizing crypto and blockchain for a more inclusive global economy, especially in remittances and payments.

John Nahas
John Nahas
Senior VP of Business Development, Ava Labs

John Nahas

Senior VP of Business Development, Ava Labs

John Nahas is the senior vice president of business development at Ava Labs, where he supports the growth of the Avalanche Ecosystem. John leads the business development team, focusing on user and partner acquisition across institutional and capital markets, enterprise, wallets and exchanges, NFTs, gaming and decentralized finance (DeFi) growth, as well as international teams, including South Korea, Japan, Turkey and India.

Jonas Simanavicius
Co-Founder and CTO, Syntropy

Jonas Simanavicius

Co-Founder and CTO, Syntropy

Jonas Simanavicius is a highly accomplished technology leader and an expert in various fields, including blockchain technologies, finance, DeFi, entrepreneurship and internet technologies. He received his honors degree in computer science with management from Edinburgh University and began his career in investment banking at the Royal Bank of Scotland and J.P. Morgan, where he worked on exotic derivative products and in trading technology teams focusing on securitized products.

Currently, Jonas is a co-founder and CTO of Syntropy, a blockchain and internet technology company. In the past 5-plus years, he has successfully led the company to raise over $10 million in funding, grow a team of more than 30 people and support a community of over 20 000 people, and secure enterprise customers and partnerships. Syntropy's decentralized technologies aim to bring the power and control of internet routing to the people and the next generation of app developers. The protocol has a utility token that reached a market capitalization of over $800 million in 2021.

Jonas has led teams to launch several blockchains and blockchain-based solutions and a publicly tradeable utility token, holds patents for his work on a distributed autonomous internet routing protocol, and is a pioneer in decentralization and the global internet infrastructure. He is well versed in the subjects of Web3 and tokenomics and has appeared on numerous Web3 podcasts and been featured in Forbes, on Yahoo and in other media outlets.

Jun Park
Jun Park
Gaming Investments Lead, Senior Investor, Hashed; Forbes 30 Under 30 Alumnus

Jun Park

Gaming Investments Lead, Senior Investor, Hashed; Forbes 30 Under 30 Alumnus

Jun holds a B.Sc. in finance and statistics from The Wharton School, UPenn and has a professional background in banking and VC in Citigroup and Hanwha, respectively, before joining Hashed.

Hashed is a team of blockchain experts and builders based in Seoul, Silicon Valley, Bangalore and Singapore. It believes that decentralization can transform not only the global economy, but the very fabric of the internet. Its mission is to accelerate the mass adoption of blockchain by investing its resources and empowering a new wave of entrepreneurs and innovators to create this future. It approaches this work as builders, not just pickers. It participates as core technical contributors to global infrastructure, and it’s built a network of projects and people that connects industry pioneers with the knowledge and resources necessary to unlock the potential of blockchain.

Kenny Wu
Kenny Wu
Investments Associate, Taisu/EMURGO Ventures

Kenny Wu

Investments Associate, Taisu/EMURGO Ventures 

Kenny Wu has over four years of experience in PE/VC and management consulting. Prior to Taisu, he was at CITIC Culture Capital, where he led multiple early-stage TMT investments. He also spent time at Allianz Consulting, specializing in corporate incubation and transformation. He dived into Web3 venture capital in 2020, with experience at 0xthread Ventures.

Kenny’s professional experience provided him with a comprehensive understanding of early-stage investment and the Web3 space. At EMURGO Ventures and Taisu Ventures, he has led more than 50 investment deals in various sectors, including DeFi, gaming and infrastructure.

Kenny obtained a B.B.A. from the University of Toronto and obtained an MBA from the National University of Singapore.

Mona Hautala
Mona Hautala
Vice President, Taisu/EMURGO Ventures

Mona Hautala

Vice President, Taisu/EMURGO Ventures

Embarking on the venture capital journey, Mona has had the privilege of collaborating with diverse fund managers, startups and contributing to LP-led VC secondary transactions. Along the way, she has built meaningful connections with a range of global private and institutional investors. At Taisu Ventures, Mona brings her experience and insights to the table, contributing to the collective efforts in fundraising, business development, event coordination, sponsorships and media outreach.

Mona’s professional journey has given her a comprehensive understanding of the VC and startup space. From partnering and investing in early-stage companies while serving on boards, navigating the intricacies of pre-seed and growth equity funds, engaging in private placement agency work, and advising and closing secondary transactions, she has gained a holistic view.

"As I prepare to join the UCLA Anderson Web3 panel, I look forward to sharing my genuine experiences, creative perspectives and insights that have shaped my path in the industry."

Ryan Caradonna (’22)
Ryan Caradonna (’22)
Founder and Co-CEO, EQ Tickets

Ryan Caradonna (’22)

Founder and Co-CEO, EQ Tickets

Ryan is the founder and co-CEO of EQ Tickets, a social ticketing and live event platform. He began his career at JP Morgan Asset Management. In 2016, Ryan caught the blockchain bug upon learning that JPM, a multitrillion-dollar asset manager, was looking to build internal accounting/ledger software utilizing Ethereum. Ever since, he's been a staunch believer in the power of blockchain to level the playing field across many fields including finance and sports and entertainment. 

Ryan is a 2022 graduate of UCLA Anderson and began working on what would become EQ Tickets while at school in fall of 2021. EQ started as a digital assets-based company, connecting music artists with their biggest fans through NFT collections. EQ generated over six figures in revenue from NFTs, formed partnerships with Grammy-winning artists and companies like Dapper Labs and went on to raise venture capital in the spring of 2023 with the vision of being the one-stop shop for live experiences (events ranging from Taylor Swift and the Super Bowl to tailgates and Halloween parties).

Sam Borghese
Co-Founder and CEO, Zeal Reserve; Lecturer, UCLA Master in Quantitative Economics Program

Sam Borghese

Co-Founder and CEO, Zeal Reserve; Lecturer, UCLA Master in Quantitative Economics Program

Ryan is the founder and co-CEO of EQ Tickets, a social ticketing and live event platform. He began his career at JP Morgan Asset Management. In 2016, Ryan caught the blockchain bug upon learning that JPM, a multitrillion-dollar asset manager, was looking to build internal accounting/ledger software utilizing Ethereum. Ever since, he's been a staunch believer in the power of blockchain to level the playing field across many fields including finance and sports and entertainment. 

Ryan is a 2022 graduate of UCLA Anderson and began working on what would become EQ Tickets while at school in fall of 2021. EQ started as a digital assets-based company, connecting music artists with their biggest fans through NFT collections. EQ generated over six figures in revenue from NFTs, formed partnerships with Grammy-winning artists and companies like Dapper Labs and went on to raise venture capital in the spring of 2023 with the vision of being the one-stop shop for live experiences (events ranging from Taylor Swift and the Super Bowl to tailgates and Halloween parties).

Tim Tello
Tim Tello
Founder and CEO, 3thix 

Tim Tello

Founder and CEO, 3thix 

Timothy Tello is an accomplished and visionary professional who has made a significant mark on the video game industry and blockchain gaming space. With a Bachelor of Science in marketing management and a strong background in sales and marketing, he has consistently demonstrated his exceptional expertise and commitment to the gaming world.

Throughout his career, Tim had the privilege of collaborating with some of the biggest names in the gaming industry, including Sony, EA, King and 505 Games, among many others. He distinguished himself by sourcing games and negotiating agreements with renowned publishers, earning him a reputation as a top-notch business developer. Tim also played a pivotal role in founding and representing various game studios, such as Three Flip Studios, Sugar Glazed Games, Octopus Games, GTL Media and Game Scribes.

Tim's contributions to the video game industry have been nothing short of extraordinary. He has been involved in projects that collectively reached over 15 million players and generated revenue exceeding $300 million. These accomplishments are a testament to his exceptional skills and dedication.

Tim's forward-thinking nature led him to assist in establishing the world of blockchain gaming. He is currently the founder and CEO of 3thix, an all-in-one blockchain gaming on- and off-ramp solution, with future work that will focus on redesigning the ways games monetize to benefit both players and developers alike. Before establishing 3thix, he worked with POQ, one of the pioneering blockchain gaming companies, where he contributed to the creation of Matic/Polygon alongside Jaynti Kunani, who was the lead engineer at POQ at the time. Tim's pivotal role in obtaining the first-ever no-action letter from the SEC for an ERC-20 token showcases his innovative thinking and problem-solving abilities. Furthermore, he co-authored a groundbreaking patent for the use of blockchain technology in video games via custodial wallets, solidifying his reputation as a thought leader in the Web3 community. His efforts have been instrumental in shaping the modern blockchain gaming industry, including the successful integration of games into Apple, Google, Epic and Steam.
 

Wyatt Hilkene (EMBA ’25)
Wyatt Hilkene (EMBA ’25)
Director of Operations, 4K Protocol

Wyatt Hilkene (EMBA ’25)

Director of Operations, 4K Protocol 

Wyatt Hilkene (EMBA ’25) is a seasoned business operations and strategy executive with over a decade of experience in SaaS and Web3 startups. In his role as the director of operations at 4K Protocol, he spearheaded 4K’s mission to bring real-world assets on-chain — turning humanity’s treasured collectibles and property into physically backed non-fungible tokens.

Prior to his time with 4K, Wyatt led operations at 3Diligent, a manufacturing SaaS startup, where he developed a passion for emerging technologies and entrepreneurship. Currently, he is pursuing an executive MBA at Anderson (Class of 2025). Wyatt serves as the director of EMBA relations with AnderTech and is a member of the Entrepreneur Association. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.

Speakers

 
Sam Borghese
CEO and Co-Founder, Zeal Reserve; Lecturer, UCLA Master in Quantitative Economics Program

Sam Borghese has designed and taught eight courses inside the Master of Quantitative Economics program at UCLA. Over the last two years, Borghese has developed and taught graduate courses in the fields of machine learning in finance and cloud computing, and he taught the first blockchain course in the economics department. 

After starting a mock fund with the former chief economist of Soros Fund. Borghese founded his own crypto hedge fund in 2022. In the first six months, he yielded +40% net of fees for his investors. The hedge fund employs machine learning–driven trading developed by Borghese himself. 

While simultaneously running the fund and being a full-time lecturer and director at UCLA, Borghese also advises several blockchain companies. One of these companies is Raze Fintech, which offers an SEC-compliant way to tokenize equity and gross revenue share of private companies. Others include a physical Web3 gaming console, VC funds and discretionary trading funds.

Alex Nascimento (’08)
Managing Director, 7CC Blockchain Investments; Co-Founder, Blockchain at UCLA

Alex Nascimento (’08) is a serial entrepreneur and founding partner of 7CC Blockchain Investments and 7Visions LATAM Digital. Nascimento is also a faculty member and co-founder of Blockchain at UCLA, where he lectures on blockchain business applications and security tokens. Additionally, he is the bestselling author of The STO Financial Revolution, a textbook uncovering regulated and compliant fundraising via blockchain. He received his MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and has developed training, marketing and blockchain strategies for companies in the United States, EU, Latin America and Asia. Nascimento speaks at major global blockchain conferences and corporate events to demystify securities issuance, business applications and investments in blockchain technology for corporate leaders, students and entrepreneurs.

Alex Simons
Director of Consumer Marketing, OpenSea

Alex Simons is the head of consumer marketing at OpenSea, where he leads the team that looks after brand campaigns, social media, partner marketing and web editorial. Prior to OpenSea, Simons led social and editorial for Calm. Before joining the world of startups, he spent five years at Netflix, where he helped launch titles like “The Defenders,” “Narcos: Mexico” and “The Umbrella Academy,” and initiatives including Netflix Is a Joke and Netflix Geeked. In 2019, he was transferred to Netflix's Tokyo office, where he spent 18 months building and developing the region's social and editorial team.

Simons lives in Los Angeles with his partner, Andy, and their two cats, Appa and Calbee. You can find him pretty much everywhere @alexjsimons.

Benjamin Tsai (’01)
Co-Founder, President and Managing Partner, Wave Financial; Lecturer, UCLA Anderson
Benjamin Tsai, the president and managing partner at Wave Financial, is a trilingual financial executive with 15 years of proven success in developing global investment solutions for institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds and high-net-worth clients. Tsai has managed profitable teams in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taipei, and served as CEO of Merrill Lynch Singapore Commodities. Subsequently, at AllianceBernstein, he served as senior portfolio manager for the alternative investments business across Asia. In addition to his work at Wave Financial, he invests in and mentors early-stage startups in Southern California. He holds a B.S. in engineering from UC Berkeley and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, where he is currently teaching crypto finance.
Clark Read
Head of Gemini Prime, Gemini
Clark Read is building crypto products and services for institutions as VP of the Prime business at Gemini. Gemini is a regulated cryptocurrency exchange, wallet and custodian that makes it simple and secure to buy bitcoin, ether and other cryptocurrencies. Before joining Gemini in early 2021, Read was head of trading and portfolio Risk at ShapeShift, a cryptocurrency market-making firm and holistic digital asset platform. Previously, he traded currencies and other macro products at various Wall Street firms in New York and Singapore.
Fabrice Cheng
Co-Founder, CEO and CTO, Quadrata
Fabrice Cheng is the co-founder, CEO and CTO at Quadrata. Cheng was previously the head of blockchain technology at Spring Labs. He is an experienced technologist and has been building on top of the Ethereum ecosystem since 2016. He received his MS and B.S. in computer science from EPITA: Ecole d’Ingénieurs en Informatique (France).
Jarrod Jenkins
Director of Content and Moderation Policy, OpenSea

Artis “Jarrod” Jenkins is a senior policy leader who advises tech platforms on how to protect against bad actors. He began his career as a federal law clerk and litigator, but since 2015, he has been on the policy teams at Airbnb, Facebook, Clubhouse and now OpenSea, where he serves as the director of content and moderation policy. As a sneakerhead, he stumbled into Web3 after learning about Nike’s acquisition of RTFKT in December 2021.

When he’s not writing the rules about what behaviors should or should not be allowed, Jenkins enters sneaker raffles; plays chess; listens to indie R&B, jazz and funk; and spends time with his wife and daughter. He is a native of Atlanta, but after spending six years in the Bay Area, he now calls Los Angeles home.

Jason Huan (B.S. ’21)
Co-Founder, Frax Finance; Co-Founder & Chairman, Blockchain at UCLA
Jason Huan is a graduate of the UCLA Engineering School's Computer Science department, having co-founded the club Blockchain at UCLA during his time as an undergrad. While in school, he co-founded Frax Finance, currently the 5th-largest stablecoin in circulation with a market capitalization of $1.0 billion dollars. His background is in blockchain, cryptocurrency, and decentralized finance.
Jonas Simanavicius
Co-Founder and CTO, Syntropy

Jonas Simanavicius is a highly accomplished technology leader and an expert in various fields, including blockchain technologies, finance, DeFi, entrepreneurship and internet technologies. Simanavicius received his degree, with honors, in computer science with management from Edinburgh University and began his career in investment banking at the Royal Bank of Scotland and JP Morgan, where he worked on exotic derivative products and in trading technology teams focusing on securitized products.

Simanavicius is a co-founder and the CTO of Syntropy, a blockchain and internet technology company. Over the past five-plus years, he raised over $10 million in funding, grew a team of more than 30 people and supporting community of over 20,000 people and secured large enterprise customers and partnerships. Syntropy's decentralized technologies aim to bring the power and control of internet routing to the people and the next generation of app developers. The protocol has a utility token that reached a market capitalization of over $800 million in 2021.

Simanavicius has led teams to launch several blockchains and blockchain-based solutions and a publicly tradeable utility token, holds patents for his work on a distributed autonomous internet routing protocol and is a pioneer in decentralization and the global internet infrastructure. He is well versed in the subjects of Web3 and tokenomics, has appeared on numerous Web3 podcasts and has been featured in Forbes, on Yahoo and on other media outlets.

Layne Nadeau
Founder and CEO, NVAL

Layne Nadeau is a technology thought leader who has delivered large-scale technology initiatives for over 20 years. Nadeau uses his hands-on experience in blockchain, digital assets and institutional finance to create and lead teams executing ambitious technology and business projects in the space.                                                       

Nadeau has led multimillion-dollar initiatives in retail banking, investment banking, blockchain and digital asset industries, as well as U.S. state governments, the British Columbia public sector, commercial and retail automotive services providers, public utilities, transportation operators, professional associations and universities. Recently, he was part of the leadership team that successfully executed a $76 million project to replace the book of record system for an investment bank with over $300 billion in assets under management, with investments spanning all major asset classes.                       

Nadeau has a bachelor’s degree in math and computer science and is genuinely excited about digital asset markets, ecosystems and technologies, and he is continuously researching new ways to apply them.

Nadeau is a father to three girls, a husband, an avid cyclist, a sailor, a brewer, a world traveler and an NFT/DeFi degen. 

Lisa Yu
General Partner, Oria Capital; Podcast Host, “The DAO Factor”

Lisa Yu is a venture capitalist, serial entrepreneur, startup coach, podcast host, speaker, musician and DJ. Yu is actively advising and investing in blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, DAOs, dApps, the metaverse and all things Web3. She is an expert go-to-market strategist for Web3 startups, NFT launches and token sales.

Yu is the founding general partner at Oria Capital, a female-led VC fund investing in early-stage Web3 startups. She also hosts “The DAO Factor,” a podcast about leaders of decentralized autonomous organizations, and is the creator of Queens of Crypto (QXO), teaching women all about crypto and NFTs. She is also a community builder and hosts regular Web3 events, pitch competitions, live concerts, tech conferences and networking events.

Yu has been featured in LA Weekly, Forbes, Yahoo Finance and Crypto Today, and shipped award-winning tech featured in The Wall Street Journal and on CNN. She has spoken at SXSW, StartupGrind, CoinAgenda, Web3 Expo, NFT San Francisco, NFTCON, Miami NFT Week, NFT-VIP, Chainlink's Women Disrupting Web3 Panel, FEMTech, International Women's Day, Unit Venture's Global Unconference, Draper University, IVY: The Social University, Digital Lifestyle Conference, HERStories, a conversation with Women in Tech & Entertainment and many more. She is an advocate for justice, equity, diversity and inclusion.

Schedule

 
1:00 p.m.
Check-in
1:30 p.m.
Welcome

Harrison Jung (’24), VP of Crypto & Web, AnderTech

1:40 p.m.
Opening Remarks

Jonas Simanavicius, Co-Founder and CTO, Syntropy

2:00 p.m.
Panel: Enterprise Business Applications: Scaling for the Future

Speakers:

Amanda Schwartz Ramirez (’10), Founder, Garden Labs; COO Advisor; Former Dapper and PayPal
John Nahas, Senior VP of Business Development, Ava Labs
Larry Pang, Head of Business Development, IoTeX

Moderator: Jonas Simanavicius, Co-Founder and CTO, Syntropy

2:45 p.m.
Break
2:50 p.m.
Panel: Builders: Pioneering Growth in Bear and Bull Markets

Speakers:

Luke Katz (’22), VP of Growth, Seratonin
Ryan Caradonna (’22), Founder and Co-CEO, EQ Tickets
Tim Tello, Founder and CEO, 3thix

Moderator: Wyatt Hilkene (EMBA ’25), Director of Operations, 4K Protocol

3:35 p.m.
Break
3:45 p.m.
Panel: Crypto and DeFi: Investing in Tomorrow

Speakers:

Ben Tsai, Co-Founder and President, Wave Digital Assets
Jun Park, Senior Investor for Gaming/IP, Hashed; Forbes 30 Under 30 Alumnus
Kenny Wu, Investments Associate, Taisu/EMURGO Ventures
Mona Hautala, Vice President, Taisu/EMURGO Ventures

Moderator: Sam Borghese, Co-Founder and CEO, Zeal Reserve; Lecturer, UCLA Master in Quantitative Economics Program

4:30 p.m.
Networking and Refreshments in the Grand Salon

Presented by

 

UCLA Easton Technology Management Center UCLA Economics Master of Quantitative Economics UCLA Price Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Entrepreneur Association Tech Business Association at Anderson

Syntropy Wave Digital Assets
Taisu codebase by Avalanche

2023 Event Highlight: Decentralized Finance Panel

 

Contact

 
Contact: Harrison Jung (’24), Vice President of Crypto & Web3, Technology Business Association at Anderson
harrison.jung.2024@anderson.ucla.edu