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My name's Wayne Wong, I'm at the NASA Glenn
Research Center, and I am the Advanced Sterling

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Converter Lead Engineer, and what that entails
is I've been working with a company called

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Sun Power to develop the advanced sterling
converter, and this is a key technology for

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NASA's future radioisotope power systems.

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Many of the missions that we've flown already,
and these missions have existed for decades,

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are based on radioisotope power systems.

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Basically, these are necessary for any application
that doesn't use solar energy or cannot use

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solar energy.

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So what we're developing is a new technology
that is much more efficient to make the best

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use of the limited plutonium that we have
currently in the United States.

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I'm Chinese and I was born in Hong Kong.

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I came over to the United States when I was
about three years old, and I've been living

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in Cleveland ever since, and I really enjoy
my hometown and I've been here my entire life.

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I went to college in Cleveland at Case Western
Reserve University, and when I was a junior

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I sought out an internship position, and I
was fortunate enough to come to NASA Glenn

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and spent the summer here.

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And when I was here, I saw the wonderful work
the Center did and the variety of technologies

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that NASA was responsible for and I wanted
to make a career out of it, and it was at

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that point, I decided to come to NASA.

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I was honored recently to be the recipient
of the 2013 Asian American Engineer of the

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Year Award.

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This was a national award that was provided
by the Chinese Institute of Engineers.

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I was nominated through my management and
went through a selection process and ultimately

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got this award for the work and contributions
that I've done in terms of my NASA work on

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the advanced sterling converter.

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While I'm proud of the award, I'm really glad
I was able to be part of this award and ceremony

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because it put a national spotlight on the
contributions of Asian Americans within the

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realm of science and technology.

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To celebrate Asian Pacific Islander Heritage
month, for the last several years, I've been

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with the organization that puts on the Cleveland
Asian Festival.

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Last year, we had over 42,000 attendees at
this event, and this year we're expecting

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it to be even larger.

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I'm really proud of being part of this event
because it brings together my hometown Cleveland.

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It brings together my Asian heritage, and
I am the emcee of the event, and I can talk

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about how wonderful this event is to all 42,000
people.

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I would say the most important thing for a
young person that's trying to make decisions

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about careers is exposure.

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Seek out every opportunity, whether that's
co-oping, internship, shadowing assignments.

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Visit workplaces of friends and relatives
just to see what real jobs are like and what