2019 in Books

A few years ago I challenged myself to read 100 books per year. We are now at the end of 2019 and this is what I read, and what I recommend per category. Keep in mind many of these books did not come out in 2019. I will also mention a few from previous years […]

12 Strong

Here is something quite different from my usual posts. Almost a year ago, in early January of 2017, I sent an email with a picture to a casting agency (Sande Alessi) to appear as an extra in a movie which was then tentatively called “Horse Soldiers”. If you haven’t heard of the book (Horse Soldiers), […]

How to Get Women into Computer Science in 3 Easy Steps

A few days ago, our research team received an email inviting us to participate in a contest. The goal of the contest was to attract more women into engineering by creating a TV series that featured as a lead character a female engineer. Now, I usually don’t get involved in gender discussions one way or another, […]

The Usefulness of Useless Academic Papers

No, I am not thinking about toilet paper, recycling, or paper airplanes. Elon Musk recently stated that academic papers are useless. (See min 9:30) If that is true then I have done quite a few useless things with my life. But let’s not jump to conclusions. Although a lot of people seem to agree that […]

Now, I Present to You…

Over the course of my career, I’ve attended several conferences, conventions, panels, symposiums, workshops, seminars and events with other fancy or weird names. Inevitably (even when some events by definition are meant to be interactive… e.g. the “work” in “workshop” is there for a reason), someone will end up giving a presentation, and if you […]

The Perks of Being a Ph.D. Student

Lately I’ve had several casual conversations with colleagues and friends who are about to finish their undergraduate degree. Naturally, professors suggest they continue with their graduate education. Here’s what a graduate degree represents in my experience, but before that, should you even be thinking about it in the first place? To be or not to […]

Research Papers: A Necessary Evil

As a graduate student, I have been (un)fairly exposed to writing research papers. As most graduate students at some point in time, I began to question their usefulness and purpose. I didn’t go too far before finding this: Peter Higgs, the British physicist who gave his name to the Higgs boson, believes no university would employ […]