Essays and Presentations
How Careful are you? Health Insurance as a Proxy for Caution towards Covid-19 Transmission in NYC 2020 (with Bruce Wen and Calvin Zhang)
This was our entry for the 2021 edition of the UChicago Econometrics Game. We were given a prompt and data set on the morning of the event and tasked with writing a five page essay on identifying the cause of COVID-19 spreading in NYC. We only had a few hours to conceptualize, analyze, and write our essay, but it turned out to be pretty fun. And I think it’s a pretty informative read.
Assessing the Allocative Efficiency of Interconnected Energy Grid Networks
My foray into GIS and network theory. This was the origin of the work I do in random networks and energy supergrids. There’s obviously a lot lacking in terms of depth and rigor (not much you can take away in terms of establishing causality) but I like to remember this as my first serious academic talk. If you’re willing to listen to my claims with a little faith (and perhaps some salt) it still makes for an interesting brief on how we should be setting capacity targets in networks.
Stochastic Optimization Methods: Adapted Langevin Schemes
This was a six page class project on adapted Langevin schemes. Turns out the TSP ended up being more complicated to solve than I first thought, and then it turns out that there are more complicated methods than MCMC out there to solve such things. But they turn out to be pretty useful, and I had a lot of fun reading about them. I think you should read about them too.
A Stochastic Control Approach to Pitch Sequencing
Something I put together for fun. There’s pretty good data on pitch sequencing, not to mention decades of traditional wisdom, but I thought it’d be interesting to see if I could formalize this problem. Am I overcomplicating things for the sake of it? Probably. Is it still a cool model to solve for the optimal allocation of pitch types in a game? Definitely.
I’m not sure where to go from here (simulations vs more theory for specific use cases) but as a standalone I think the stuff here works. Feel free to reach out if you have any ideas.
I’m really excited about cross-disciplinary research, especially in biology and economics. I often get asked if I’m now an economist or a mathematician. My answer is always: “Yes!”
Chalk it up to youthful ignorance, but I never really saw the need to choose. I think it’s pretty fun to try and identify causality in a cellular network or in a large genome data set. I also think it’s useful from time to time to see social interactions from a mathematical perspective. It doesn’t seem straightforward to figure out the “most influential” member in a graduating high school class, but with a little help from the likes of Erdos, Renyi, and Coleman, it is!
But I guess the big question is, “where’s all this going?” Talk about something that keeps you up at night.
Ramblings
Well, I see myself getting better at explaining how small scale randomness creates large scale change and order. (Think about how toilet paper sold out the moment a pandemic was announced, because some of us got extra nervous)
I’m extremely interested in modeling genomic instability and characterizing the relationship between our genes and environmental conditions. I’m also fascinated with the way people interact in large groups, even without explicit contact, so I see myself engrossed in mean field games and network theory for some time. (We must never run out of TP again!)
If I were to connect these themes, some of the more exciting implications have to do with potential immunotherapy methods for genetic diseases. That is, is it possible to influence genetic outcomes through environmental signals? (Yes, yes, it’s very ambitious and a little presumptuous, but who isn’t?)
I think there are a lot of interesting possibilities from modeling cells and DNA as self-interested agents, the way we do in economics. And when we try and analyze their behavior using probabilistic tools, we figure out things about the way systems are ordered, that we may not have been able to if we stuck to our silos.
There’s just a lot of inherent satisfaction from characterizing how this order emerges from microscopic randomness, and it’s what gets me out of bed most days.
I’m also a certified Softball coach in Singapore. I’ve played both Softball and Baseball competitively in multiple countries and had a lot of fun. I’m a huge SF Giants fan, which is a real test of faith and loyalty these days.
Before you ask, I don’t try to be a Moneyball style stats guy. I’m actually a little more on the conservative side when it comes to sports strategy. But the love for data sprung from sports economics, so it will always retain a special place in my heart.
Also in case it wasn’t obvious, I love to travel and take photos. I’m especially partial to landscape photography, probably because I love hiking in beautiful and remote places.
If you liked the photos or just want to talk hiking spots, do reach out!
Brighton Beach 2017
Barcelona 2017
Montana 2020