A Nerd and his three housemates
I am a researcher currently at the University of Rochester’s Department of Physics and Astronomy. I was born in Poland, grew up in Berlin and California. I earned my B.A. in physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and my theoretical physics Ph.D. in the lovely woods of New England from Dartmouth College. At Cal I worked on neutrino detection for the KamLAND project. After undergrad I taught in N.Y.C. and researched low mass kinda-stars known as brown dwarfs at the reknowned Hayden Planetarium located in the American Museum of Natural History. For my Ph.D. I started off in Cosmology, but slowly found myself thinking about the nature of knowledge and how mushy brains come to know things about the world. What exactly is information, how is it instantiated in the physical world, and how does it have causal power? My thesis was on the behavior of information theoretic measures to the formation of solitons and phase transitions.
Since completing my doctorate I’ve been a research scientist in multiple fields: neuroscience, psychophysics, and continuum mechanics/biomedical physics. During my time at the Wisconsin Center for Sleep and Consciousness I worked on Integrated Information Theory, one of the leading theories of how subjective experience emerges in matter. At the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center I worked on a novel imaging modality known as magentic resonance elastography. I was a fellow at the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Engagement, giving me a multi-faceted perspective on the scientific endeavor. None of these adventures would have been possible without the awesome power of mathematics coupled to creativity!
I have loved art and mathematics for as long as I can remember. I’m keen on synthesizing the two, and make visualizations of the projects I work on. After all, if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a thousand frames of video is, what, a million words? That’s also why I like mathematics. It’s a formal language that lets us convey the pictures in our heads with high fidelity to other people’s heads. And that is rad.
When not frantically scribbling runic looking symbols on paper, I like to go hiking with my GSD, Ursus. He was born on 2023, still gives off major puppy vibes and so much energy. At home I’m always greeted by my old man, Cosmas. Cosmas was born in 2017, and is starting to get grey hairs and lose his teeth. He likes lounging at home all day with his younger brother, Gaius, whose favorite past time is running up to Ursus, slapping him, and then running for dear life. Animals are amazing, and I’m grateful to have these three guys in my life.
