Jasen was born in Stanford, California in 1991. As a young child he took delight in investigating the built environment, watching buildings go together, or taking apart old electronics. He showed a propensity toward his independent projects, working in contented solitude for hours uninterrupted while his workspace continued to evolve, until it had taken over the back half of his parents garage. Before the end of high school it had grown into a serviceable machine shop, and began accepting local commission work.
He started at UCSC in the fall of 2010, and saw it as a time to broaden his awareness and appreciation of a diverse world. He took courses on everything from food systems and Polynesian art forms to bronze casting and robotic automation. For two summers he interned in the deep submergence robotics laboratory at the Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole (WHOI), Massachusetts. Back at UCSC, he began to base his explorations out of the metal and wood shops of the art department. He was recognized for his work, and received the department's Irwin Award Scholarship. He thus ended his time at the university with an exhibition of his scratch built handcart and barrels on the topic of reclaiming individual means of production.
He spent the next several years working with a small start-up to bring back the beloved HeathKit. Their electronics kits brought delight and surprise to nostalgic fans and newcomers alike. He enjoyed the challenges of producing something the team members could only have made by working together, and soon moved to the role of lead mechanical designer.
Jasen began taking courses at the local college to continue growing. He quickly found that the school’s STEM program was supported by exceptional teachers and mentors, and reconnected with a love and curiosity towards math and physics, not experienced in such a way since taking his first physics course in high school. In 2018 he decided to come back full time to pursue an AS in engineering. Reaching that milestone, he set sights on a bachelors in engineering. This took him to Arizona State University in Tempe.
After undergrad, it was off to Boston for MS Robotics. In 2024 he became a part of the Northeastern University Field Robotics Lab, and in doing so closed a great circle beginning in 2012 when he had been part of that same lab at WHOI. This is where we find him today, living in Boston, working on his thesis project, and fusion dancing in a company called Light the Fuse. He'll take any excuse to spend time summer roller skating in NYC or winter ice skating with friends in Boston Common, or go for a springtime sail on the Charles River. As he looks forward to where discovery and adventure will take him next, the rest, they say, is yet unwritten!