My name is MyungJae Lee, but most call me Matthew. I was born in Seoul, Korea in the winter of 1998 to a photographer and writer. I spent my early days in Seoul until Christmas Day - 2007, when I immigrated to the U.S. with my mom and older brother. It felt weird because we left Korea on Christmas and landed in the US on Christmas due to the time difference.

We got settled in South Pasadena, a suburb of Los Angeles, thanks to the help of some family friends. It was a great little city and we ended up spending almost 10 years in various places throughout South Pasadena.
 

I liked math for as long as I can remember. At first it was because I was good at it, but I learned to enjoy learning. I breezed all the way through highschool, having taken almost all the STEM courses my school had to offer. Between school, friends, and family, Adulthood quickly approached.

I, like many young adults, didn’t know what I wanted to do in life. It’s a hard question to ask a 18 year old. Or any age really. I chose to study mechanical engineering because it was such a broad field with many different paths. I thought that I would somehow find out what exactly I wanted to do during my time at college.
 

From 2017 to 2021, I studied mechanical engineering and mathematics at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, a small town in western Indiana. It was a complete change of pace for a boy from LA, but I quickly made friends and the years flew by. In the middle of my junior year, COVID-19 changed the world.
After graduation, I moved up to Northwest Indiana and spent a year and a half working in the steel mills. The job wasn’t really what I or many of my peers thought it was, but it was a job, and a well-paying one at that. However, I soon realized that this wasn’t the industry for me.
 

Since then, I’ve continued to develop my skills and experiment with new technologies. In November of 2022, I successfully transitioned into software at iPro Systems where I provide solutions to clients in the retail industry.
 

I now live in the suburbs of Nashville with my girlfriend and two cats.

15 years ago, I didn’t know the alphabet. Now, I’m a U.S. citizen. Life is weird!