Some of my favorite books - 2019 edition

Last year, I read almost all of the books I read early in the year when I was unemployed. By the end of the year, I was finding it a bit difficult to read as much as I wanted - so this year, I full embraced audiobooks, which have helped me to read more despite the fact that I actually have less time than I did last year. Sales I spent most of ... Read more 16 Aug 2020 - 3 minute read

Some of my favorite books - 2018 edition

I’m posting this list a year late, but I hope you’ll forgive me: 2018 was quite the year for me. I started 2018 in the throes of introspection as I decided what was next for me after leaving my PhD in 2017. By April, I decided to pursue the seed of an idea that became Sparrow. In July, the idea officially became a company. In August, we got our... Read more 24 Dec 2019 - 2 minute read

Introducing Sparrow

Last summer, I founded Sparrow, a software company that provides the simplest way for companies to provide employees with extended leave. In this post, I've answered some of my most frequently asked questions, and I will follow up with some of my lessons learned in the coming weeks. What is Sparrow? By managing the paperwork, deadlines, and en... Read more 23 Jan 2019 - 2 minute read

How regret minimization changed my life

Last year, I made the difficult decision to take a leave of absence from my PhD program to start a company. So far, I am really happy with my decision, and I wanted to share my thought process. I’ve always known that I wanted to start something. I didn’t know what form it would take – business, nonprofit, community organization. In college, I w... Read more 01 Sep 2018 - 3 minute read

How to find underrepresented groups in machine learning

Are you woman or an underrepresented minority? Have you worked on a project that uses machine learning? Do you want the opportunity to attend a top teir machine learning conference? Do you want to meet other women in minorities who are working in your field? If so, there are event and organizations that are dedicated to helping new researchers f... Read more 13 Apr 2018 - 4 minute read

How to jumpstart a career in machine learning

“Do I need a graduate degree to start a career in machine learning?” I've been asked this question frequently, and I'd love to answer with an unqualified "No, to get a job in machine learning, you need to know machine learning." But realistically speaking, while the job titles Data Scientist and AI Researcher hold a lot of prestige at the momen... Read more 10 Apr 2018 - 5 minute read

Some of my favorite books - 2017 edition

Partway through 2017, I set a goal of reading for an hour per day. While some were more engaging than others, all of them were good. In this post, I share the list of books I read and a short description of what I got from each book. Phenomenally good books If you have not read these books, you should. Each one either changed how I thought abo... Read more 13 Mar 2018 - 5 minute read

Advice for acing your PhD interviews

My undergraduate research was in computational cognitive science, so I applied to a mix of psychology and computer science programs. In my experience, interviews for computer science PhD programs are relatively rare. So my advice is coming from (a) my interviews for psychology PhD programs, and (b) discussing interviews with friends who intervie... Read more 01 Mar 2018 - 2 minute read

How to learn Machine Learning

A lot of people have asked me how to get started with machine learning and/or deep learning. This is a list of some of the resources that I have either found useful myself or heard people who I trust rave about. This post is a summary of my github repository (which I expect to update more often than this post). General Machine Learning Classes... Read more 03 Feb 2018 - 4 minute read

How to write a winning NSF Graduate Research Fellowship proposal

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship is one of several graduate fellowships that you can apply for early in your graduate career. Other bloggers (i.e. Philip Guo & Jean Yang) have written overviews of what to expect when applying for the NSF. When I applied, I wanted more specific advice on how to write a winnin... Read more 17 Jan 2018 - 5 minute read