I'm a 24-year-old graduate student stumbling through life at an alarming pace. When I'm not sleeping or spending my days in a skylit university building at my desk next to an industrial-grade refrigerator, I enjoy biking, reading, wandering, tinkering, building and destroying.

Recently completed my M.Sc. degree, I'm now taking some time away from degree commitments to publish some journal articles and clear my head before throwing myself head first at a Ph.D. program.

My field of interest is machine learning, which is basically at the nexus of statistics and computer science. Needless to say, I obviously like math but I wasn't always good at it; I flunked my calculus class in first year in fact. I've since come to believe that if you aren't failing at about half the things you attempt, you aren't challenging yourself enough.

I can play a bunch of musical instruments, I was trained in classical piano from the age of 3 but ended up doing a computer science degree and falling out of practice.

I'm fairly good with problem solving, seeing the big picture (at least when it's other people's problems and not my own). I like to think I'm pretty good at people reading, but I could be way off the mark.

you'd have to ask them.

It's hard to say with books, it changes a lot over time; Galapagos, Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut are perpetual favourites, as is the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald that has stuck with me since I read it in high school. The original Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov would also rank high, as would Manifold: Space by Stephen Baxter

I don't typically watch a lot of television but find myself drawn to recorded TV show episodes as easily digestable fragments when I need a bit of distraction. Among my favourites are House, Dead Like Me, Jericho, Futurama, Battlestar Galactica (the remake), Angel (never much cared for Buffy, but the spinoff was great), Veronica Mars Arrested Development and most recently, 30 Rock.

As for movies, SLC Punk, Army of Darkness, This Is Spinal Tap, A Clockwork Orange, High Fidelity, Pi, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle is mindless but fun; the sequel I found kind of sappy.

Music: These days: Matthew Good, Ben Folds, Josh Ritter, Jeff Buckley, Abandoned Pools, Broken Social Scene/Kevin Drew. I've had a soft spot for the Postal Service since I first heard them back in 2004, and recently I've been finally warming up to Death Cab. I was raised by a classical pianist so I will always have a soft spot for Mozart, J.S. Bach, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakov and (especially) Chopin.

Food, just about anything Indian, as well as a lot of Lebanese and Thai; an old-fashioned Irish roast beef dinner.

These desert island type questions always bug me...

• Some sort of musical instrument, preferably a piano.
  
• A writing implement and paper or something like it.
  
• A few intelligent friends off of which to bounce ideas. Essentially people who try to poke holes in my argument and question my assumptions.
  
• Caffeine. It's my special friend.
  
• A computer, preferably with access to Wikipedia.
  
• Something left to solve.

science, U.S. politics, math, cities, what Toronto will look like in 20 years, what the heck I will look like in 20 years, how to fit square pegs in round holes.

I don't know if there's such a thing as a typical Friday night for me. The most likely scenario is that I've forgotten to make plans, but the night often takes strange turns from that point on.

My father passed away in 2005, and I think it came before I had really gotten the most out of his experience.

You think we'd get along.