I graduated from Stanford University in 2013 with dual Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering and Architectural Design, and in 2015 with a Master’s in Structural Engineering. I was project manager of Stanford’s first-ever entry to the U.S. DOE’s 2013 Solar Decathlon. I’m Executive Director of City Systems, a nonprofit consultancy, and program manager / lecturer at Stanford’s Future Bay Initiative. Previously, I taught architecture at The Nueva School and worked on urban design under the name Cloud Arch Studio. I grew up in Arcadia (SoCal) but currently live in downtown San Francisco.
Other interests:
- Book reviews on Goodreads
- Playlists on Spotify
- Film reviews on Letterboxd
- Photography on Flickr
- Occasionally, tweets and twitter poems
- Arts and culture on a FB group (request to join)
- Moral epistemology on a private FB group (invite only)
Features:
- 5/13/21 – A spotlight on the Placekey Blog.
- 8/19/20 – “COVID-19 Spatial Research,” MapScaping Podcast. An interview I did about work by my practicum course at Stanford.
- 8/5/20 – “Sea level rise to choke Bay Area traffic as far away as Santa Rosa, Napa, study shows,” SF Chronicle. Highlighting research I co-authored.
- 6/25/20 – My guide to Asimov.
- 5/20/20 – “SafeGraph Data Consortium Seminar – Leveraging Data To Support Local Government And NonProfit Partners In COVID-19 Response.” A presentation of work by my practicum course at Stanford.
- 8/21/19 – “Behavior Change Case Study: City Systems & Affordable Housing,” Meeting of the Minds. A discussion of my nonprofit work in East Palo Alto.
- 3/7/19 – “Explore Stanford Summer Institutes,” Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies. Some comments from me about my experience teaching high school students.
- 11/28/18 – “Stockton’s Revival – Universal Basic Income, Collective Impact and Economic Empowerment,” Meeting of the Minds. A video recording of a discussion I moderated with FUSE Fellow Ann Rogan and Mayor Michael Tubbs.
- 5/25/18 – “Built for Health: Public Spaces and Urban Design,” USGBC. A podcast interview I did about my experiences with urban design.
- 12/1/14 – “Re-engineering the Start.Home CORE for the Developing World with Derek Ouyang,” Stanford+Connects Seattle.
- 10/9/14 – “Thinking Outside the Bubble: Project-Based Learning in the 21st Century with Derek Ouyang,” Stanford+Connects NY.
- 9/4/14 – “Home Energy’s 30 under 30,” Home Energy Magazine.
- 6/20/13 – “The House That Teaches: Derek Ouyang at TEDxStanford.”
- 10/15/13 – “Derek Ouyang, home improver with a green goal,” LA Times.
Leave me anonymous questions/comments here.
Best albums, films, and books of the last few years:
Albums
| 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | |
| 1 | Birdy – Young Heart | Trace Mountains – Lost in the Country | American Football – American Football (LP3) | Say Sue Me – When We Were Together | Big Thief – Capacity |
| 2 | Charlie Hickey – Count the Stairs (EP) | Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher | The National – I Am Easy to Find | The 1975 – A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships | The National – Sleep Well Beast |
| 3 | Japanese Breakfast – Jubilee | Bonny Light Horseman – Bonny Light Horseman | Caroline Polachek – Pang | Big Red Machine – Big Red Machine | The War on Drugs – A Deeper Understanding |
| 4 | Kings of Convenience – Peace or Love | The 1975 – Notes on a Conditional Form | Fruit Bats – Gold Past Life | Luluc – Sculptor | Kendrick Lamar – DAMN. |
| 5 | Clairo – Sling | TORRES – Silver Tongue | Big Thief – U.F.O.F. | The Tallest Man On Earth – When The Bird Sees The Solid Ground | Rostam – Half-Light |
| 6 | Lucy Dacus – Home Video | Eve Owen – Don’t Let the Ink Dry | Clairo – Immunity | KIDS SEE GHOSTS – KIDS SEE GHOSTS | Jens Lekman – Life Will See You Now |
| 7 | Rostam – Changephobia | Whitney – Candid | Weyes Blood – Titanic Rising | Rhye – Blood | SZA – Ctrl |
| 8 | Lightning Bug – A Color of the Sky | Bombay Bicycle Club – Everything Else Has Gone Wrong | Hand Habits – placeholder | Trace Mountains – A Partner To Lean On | Real Estate – In Mind |
| 9 | Julien Baker – Little Oblivions | The Weeknd – After Hours | Stella Donnelly – Beware of the Dogs | Yo La Tengo – There’s A Riot Going On | Mac DeMarco – This Old Dog |
| 10 | Ethel Cain – Inbred | Kevin Krauter – Full Hand | Bayonne – Drastic Measures | Janelle Monae – Dirty Computer | Fleet Foxes – Crack-Up |
Films
| 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | |
| 1 | Pig | Tenet | Parasite | You Were Never Really Here | Get Out |
| 2 | Lovers Rock | Ema | Portrait of a Lady on Fire | Hereditary | Raw |
| 3 | Nomadland | First Cow | Knives Out | A Quiet Place | The Florida Project |
| 4 | Luca | Blow the Man Down | 1917 | First Reformed | Dunkirk |
| 5 | Sound of Metal | The Trial of the Chicago 7 | Uncut Gems | Into the Spider-verse | Call Me By Your Name |
| 6 | Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom | Crip Camp | Marriage Story | Cold War | Wind River |
| 7 | A Quiet Place Part II | Palm Springs | Little Women | Death of Stalin | Detroit |
| 8 | Beginning | Emma. | Peanut Butter Falcon | First Man | Lady Bird |
| 9 | No Sudden Move | Da 5 Bloods | Climax | The Favourite | Good Time |
| 10 | The Mitchells vs. The Machines | Onward | Avengers: Endgame | Avengers: Infinity War | Molly’s Game |
Books
| 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | |
| 1 | The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante (2012) | The End of Eternity by Issac Asimov (1955) | Fleishman Is In Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner | Ball Lightning by Cixin Liu (2004) | The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu (2008) |
| 2 | Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (1992) | The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (1989) | Exhalation by Ted Chiang | Less by Andrew Sean Greer (2017) | Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss (2017) |
| 3 | A Promised Land by Barack Obama (2020) | Apeirogon by Colum McCann | Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky (2015) | The Overstory by Richard Powers | Evicted by Matthew Desmond (2016) |
| 4 | Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro | The Plague by Albert Camus (1947) | An American Summer by Alex Kotlowitz | Enlightenment Now: The Case For Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker | The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015) |
| 5 | Conjectures and Refutations by Karl Popper (2002) | Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer (2014) | The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells | The Book of Why by Judea Pearl | Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit (1984) |
| 6 | Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante (2013) | Golden Gates by Conor Dougherty | Know My Name by Chanel Miller | Inadequate Equilibria: Where and How Civilizations Get Stuck by Eliezer Yudkowsky | Death’s End by Cixin Liu (2010) |
| 7 | The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante (2014) | Know Your Price by Andre Perry | Bad Blood by John Carreyrou (2018) | Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami | Commonwealth by Ann Patchett (2016) |
| 8 | Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (1993) | The Meritocracy Trap by Daniel Markovits (2019) | Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (2017) | The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (1969) | Systems of Survival by Jane Jacobs (1992) |
| 9 | Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (1996) | Self-Portrait in Black and White by Thomas Chatterton Williams (2019) | There There by Tommy Orange (2018) | The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles C. Mann | The Expanding Circle by Peter Singer (1981) |
| 10 | Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner | The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray (2019) | Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch | The Captured Economy by Brink Lindsey & Steven M. Teles | When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (2016) |
Derek Ouyang 