Born and raised in Japan, Yu first came to the US alone at the age of 18 with the plan to return to Japan to go to a medical school. She ended up going to colleges in the US, constantly trying different fields, i.e. Biochemistory/Math, Women's Studies/Political Science/Writing/ Education/etc., until she finally discovered her 'true love': Film Making.

After working on over 10 short films, Yu is currently trying to complete her first feature film, "Aura, IL;" its earlier draft of the script was a semi-finalist at the Moondance International Film Festival. It is taking a long time, but she's not worried. She recently met Ang Lee, who told her, "It took me 5 years to complete my very first feature." She has a few more years to go.

Meanwhile, she continues to lead the computer education program, IDCE, that she founded with her mother while she was still in college. The program has donated over 3,000 used computers with free instructions to over 23 countries world wide. The program is still ongoing and, as a co-founder and co-chair of the program, she has traveled to various parts of the world, spreading computer education as literacy.

Yu's additional interests include projects that tie arts and technology together. For example, the narrative use of three-dimensional audio and visual imaging and display technology; the combined use of Motion Capture Technology, internet, and dance, etc.. As a visiting scholar of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois, Yu has initiated some Art & Technology projects. One of her Art-Tech performances, Hummingbird , which she produced and directed, was an official selection of SIGGRAPH 2003.

In addition, Yu's one-act plays and monologues have been performed in Boston and Los Angeles, and her writings and photographs have appeared in several publications. She has received various awards and recognitions for her work, and one of them is the Gaia Award from the Moondance International Film Festival for her film script, "Ai Yamahiro," which she hopes to produce/direct sometime in the near future.

Yu  has received BS from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and M.Ed. from Harvard University (where she was the student commencement speaker as the first Japanese student ever to speak at Harvard's graduations.) She has also completed the M.F.A. course work in Film Production at the University of Southern California.

Her project in 2009 includes a start-up of a film program in Kyoto, Japan, as a part of Kyoto Computer Gakuin (KCG), the Japan's oldest computer school founded by her parents in 1963.

Reference:
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