Confronting AlphaGo
The value of human teachers in the age of machines
In March 2016, world champion Go player Lee Sedol was defeated by the computer program AlphaGo in a five-game match. As someone who doesn’t play Go, follow professional Go, or study computer science, this shouldn’t have been a big deal to me. But it was. Go is incredibly complex: if every atom in our universe […]
Communicating Science
I believe it is not enough to do science. We must also communicate it and defend it.
Survival of the fittest. A succinct, elegant tenant of life—and perhaps the most famous words to be uttered in all biology. Uttered by whom, though? You might be surprised to learn it wasn’t Charles Darwin. It was Herbert Spencer, an English philosopher, sociologist, and political theorist. Spencer “lifted” survival of the fittest out of Darwin’s Origin […]
Returning to MIT
Choosing to attend graduate school at my undergraduate institution
I came back to MIT as a graduate student more in spite of my time as an undergraduate here than because of it. And I’m so glad that I did. Now, don’t get me wrong. My hesitation wasn’t because my undergraduate experience wasn’t amazing. It was. I loved my first time at MIT, and would […]
Human Touch
Embracing what you need in graduate school
As native Californian, choosing to attend MIT came as a shock to my family. When I moved to Boston, they started placing bets on whether I would stay past the first blizzard, and how long I would last in general. Luckily for me, I moved to the east coast during one of the tamest Boston […]
How the Squirtle Spawn
The importance of relaxation at MIT
Graduate student life is very busy, especially at MIT. No two days in the lab are the same. In my opinion, this is what makes science and being a student at MIT so exciting. There’s never a shortage of people making strides in their research. Some days I might be in the lab for 16 […]
