About Me

Naturalist

I love nature. One of my favorite pastimes is visiting exhibits that showcase nature, from (ethical) zoos or aquariums to natural history museums.
I'm also a big fan of hiking to observe the plants and animals around me.
My favorite animals are cats, caterpillars, slugs, and penguins. My favorite plants are those in the families Lamiaceae and Solanaceae. I love all mushrooms.

Tuco-tucos are often studied to understand the effects of climate change on species with low genetic diversity. Not this one, though. This one is dead.

Scientist

My personal opinion is the biology is the hardest problem in the world. Understanding biology in a predictive and meaningful way is an enormous challenge, particularly given that we are biological systems ourselves.
I believe that one of the best ways for us to understand biological data is to use clever tractable models to reason about the most complex biological problems. As such, my research is in artificial intelligence and machine learning, developing methods and tools that allow computational models to learn scientific truths which can then be useful for humans.

Fit strength of 4 models predicting gene expression from cis-SNPs

Teacher

Teaching is one of my passions, and I've been involved in it for quite some time, both at Berkeley and at Stanford.
In my spare time, I often mentor high-school students in science and mathematics, either as a private tutor or as a volunteer.

Here's something for you to learn: The plant here is Amorphophallus titanium, or the corpse flower. Here it is in the leaf stage, and what you see is one large leaf, divided into many leaflets.

Musician

I've played the piano pretty much since kindergarten. I enjoy the classics. I prefer playing pieces from the Classical, Romantic, and Impressionist eras. Some of my favorite pieces include:
   – Beethoven's Sonatas
   – Chopin's Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 (Any waltz or nocturne by Chopin, really)
   – Debussy's Arabesque No. 1
   – Liszt's Liebestraum
   – Prokofiev's Waltz from Cinderella
   – Rachmaninoff's Prelude No. 2 in C# minor

Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# minor [source: imslp.info]

Eagle Scout

I started Cub Scouts in the second grade, became a Boy Scout in sixth, and finally earned my Eagle Award in January of 2013. My Eagle Project was to build a large tool shed for an elementary school. With the help of my amazing troop, we built the massive edifice from scratch, and transported it all the way to its final destination on a truck. It still stands today.
I was a member of Troop 87 in Mountain View, CA.
To this day, I can easily tie a myriad of knots; now if only I had a reason to use them...