My life mixes elements of technology and nature. Every summer I spend a week sitting by a mountain stream with my laptop. I'm planning to build a full-size autonomous sail boat and a farm filled with sensors and live data processing.

I spent a year as a nomad: I stayed in 46 different places, mostly on the US west coast, but also in 8 other countries. It was fun, but in the end I really wanted to have my own bed and my own bookshelf. I've now gotten settled in SF and plan to keep it as my home base.

I'm the founder of an education nonprofit. We're focused on making math and science more accessible and engaging. We want to help students understand the strengths and limitations of using science/math/data to address real-world/human issues.

I wish I could create clones of myself, each living a different life. Here are some possible clone lives:

1. running a small farm (with goats, chickens, greenhouses, permaculture, and aquaponics)
2. working on improving the education system
3. being a professor working on new tools for biology
4. creating robot/video/data art
5. travelling, including a full loop of the Pacific Rim
6. working on my top-secret world-changing robotics project

I think I have a decent shot at interleaving most of these clone lives into my current life. I've had a good start so far. Some achievements (proceeding with mini resume): working on music videos for Daft Punk and Bjork, building prize-winning robots, building international art installations, getting a PhD from MIT, doing a cell-imaging postdoc, starting my current education endeavor, building a boat from scratch, discovering a champagne cellar in the subway tunnels of NY, visiting Chernobyl, and getting invited to NZ to work on the Hobbit.

washing dishes

Recent favorite books: Whole Earth Discipline and What We Believe but Cannot Prove (and the rest of that series).

Older favorites: Calvino, Borges, Douglas Adams

physics, biology, carbs

economics, politics, urban planning, energy, education, data literacy, design, modularity, molecular biology, history of science, future of science, geoengineering, emergent patterns, DIY biotech, DIY farming, building/rebuilding houses