You might have seen Jeffrey Kamalian walking around campus in a hip fedora and a leather jacket. You might have spotted him messing around with physics professor Mark Wong. You might have even asked him for help on one of the labs you were working on. But what is this celebrity-looking guy actually doing on our campus?
“Uncle Jeffy”, as he likes to call himself while he walks around labs offering his help, is the school’s “Senior Science Lab Coordinator.”
“Wow, that’s me,” he says as he looks at a big placard that the school gave him, engraved with his name and title. That wasn’t always his title.
Kamalian is a San Francisco native, which he notes can be easily deduced by looking at the huge Joe Montana poster hanging in his office.
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His childhood dream was becoming a rock and roll star, and he almost achieved this stardom when he joined a band called Critical Mass. He joined this band when he was in his first year at San Francisco State University. This band led to him eventually dropping out of San Francisco State University
“I dropped out because I met a girl and I joined a band,”he said.
Spoken like a true rock and roll star.
When he wasn’t rocking out with his band in the evening, he was working at a recording studio as one of three technicians, where he learned how to work on electronics. After years there, he decided that he needed to go back to school and get a degree because he knew this rockstar life wouldn’t last forever. He went to City College of San Francisco and got an associate’s degree in electronics. His day consisted of working in the studio during the day, and then going to class at night or playing a show.
In 2000, the record label went bankrupt and he knew he had to take the next step in life. He got a position here as a “Senior Electronics Technician.” Kamalian decided to come work at CCC because he knew his mother would be proud.
“She’s my role model,” he explains. His mother was a single mom of two while she graduated UC Berkeley at the top of her class,and became an English teacher for more than35 years. He even has a poster of him and his mom hanging in his office as a testament to his admiration for her.
Although at the beginning, Kamalian’s job only entailed making sure everything was working electronically, he took his own spin on the job and stepped into his mother’s footsteps. It all started when one of the instructors was overwhelmed and asked him to come in to help him, and he realised he had a knack for helping and teaching. He found that helping behind the scenes was not as fulfilling as helping the students directly.
“That’s not my job”, he says, “but I liked it.”
He continued helping other instructors in labs, and even started editing and creating lab manuals to make them easier for students to understand. He says that it is the most rewarding part of his job. He just wants his students to know that “we are here for you”.
After a long time of working at CCC, they eventually changed his job title to “Senior Science Lab Coordinator” to better fit his role in the community.
When I asked Kamalian why he agreed to take this interview, even though he had never spoken to me, he said that because I am one of his students, “if you want it, and I can do it, I’ll do it for you.” That’s the kind of person that Jeffrey Kamalian is.