I was born in Moscow, Russia but most of my childhood I spent in California, playing tennis and wishing on stars.  My early interests in school were poetry and expression through art.  My desire to make turned into a fascination with mathematics – to me, the ultimate human construction: principles that try to describe creation itself.

I received my bachelors in Mathematics and Physics from The College of William and Mary in 2005, my masters in Applied Mathematics from the University of Washington in 2006, and my PhD in Computational Neuroscience from Boston University in 2014.

My desire to make has led me to study the greatest maker of all. How does nature build us so effortlessly? How does it link parts on so many different scales to work together? What principles guide it? What pushes it to build?

In my professional life I have been: a mathematical modeler of kidney disease and health care processes, a researcher at a hospital working on an MRI aging study, a woodworking instructor at a maker space, a post-doc working on computer vision models, a logistician with MSF (Doctors without Borders), and most recently a deep learning engineer for one of the many companies in the Bay Area building a flying car.

My interest in science is equalled by my drive to build – a longing for connection to something outside of myself. I am an avid wood and metal worker, and most recently a timber framer. I love to work with my hands, to travel, and to learn languages. This website is a collection of my work, interests, and inspirations.