Draft:Bert Yuanjie Ma

Bert Yuanjie Ma (born August 1, 1988) is an American lawyer and attorney who has practiced at firms and as a corporate lawyer in New York City.

Early life and education
Bert Yuanjie Ma was born in China on August 1, 1988. He immigrated to the United States when he was two years old with his parents. In an effort to have their child assimilate into the United States, Ma's parents allowed him to pick an "English" name. Ma chose "Bert" from the iconic duo of Bert and Ernie on one of the few American TV shows he watched, Sesame Street.

Ma grew up in Lake Oswego, Oregon, a suburb of Portland. He attended Lakeridge High School and while there, he participated in numerous extracurricular activities, most notably, he was involved in theatre and speech and debate. Throughout his four years at Lakeridge, Ma competed in National Forensic League (now the National Speech and Debate Association) tournaments focusing in Lincoln-Douglas debate and extemporaneous speaking. In his senior year, Ma was elected as student body president and served on Lakeridge's ASB.

Bert Ma scored very well on his SAT, scoring 2390 out of 2400. This along with his stellar academics led him to apply to many top universities on the East Coast including those in the Ivy League. He has stated that Columbia University was his "safety school" and that was the only Ivy League School he got into. He also got into the University of Chicago. Ma was lucky to have his application considered as he submitted all his applications late because, in his senior year, he believed "college starts in September, I'll have plenty of time to figure it out." In reality, the deadlines of almost all of the schools he had applied to had passed. Ma studied and obtained Bachelor of Arts degrees in gender studies, astrophysics, and political science at Columbia when he graduated in 2010. After college, he went to law school where he obtained his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 2015.

Career
After Bert Ma graduated from Yale Law School in 2015, he immediately began work as an associate at the well-known law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. As part of his work, he relocated from New Haven, Connecticut to an apartment on Roosevelt Island in New York, New York. Ma worked at the firm for roughly two and a half years.

After his time at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Kratz, Ma started to work as an attorney at the D. E. Shaw & Co., also based in New York City. After working as an attorney for one year and nine months, Ma was promoted in January 2020 to a vice president at the company. Ma still works at D. E. Shaw & Co.

Personal life
Bert Ma moved back to the Palisades neighborhood in Lake Oswego in May 2021. Ma stated that the reason for moving from New York City was that his parents who still lived there needed some help around the house as they got older.

In his free time, Ma enjoys being an assistant coach on the Lakeridge High School Speech and Debate team, the same team he competed with when he was in high school. He also enjoys playing Scrabble online and over the board and expanding his vocabulary. Ma is a Trekkie (a fan of the Star Trek franchise) and as such, his dog is named "Spock" after the first officer on the USS Enterprise.