Category Archives: grad school

Readers wanted!

Posted on August 10, 2014 by Brent

tl;dr: Read a draft of my thesis and send me your feedback by September 9! Over the past year I’ve had several people say things along the lines of, “let me know if you want me to read through your … Continue reading →

Posted in category theory, combinatorics, diagrams, grad school, math, species, writing | Tagged , , , , | 15 Comments

Maniac week

Posted on August 4, 2014 by Brent

Inspired by Bethany Soule (and indirectly by Nick Winter, and also by the fact that my dissertation defense and the start of the semester are looming), I am planning a “maniac week” while Joyia and Noah will be at the … Continue reading →

Posted in grad school, meta, writing | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

Beeminding for fun and profit

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Brent

I’ve been using Beeminder (which I’ve mentioned once before) for a little over six months now. The verdict? Beeminder has changed my life. That sounds dramatic, but I’m not kidding. I am far more productive than I’ve ever been. I’m … Continue reading →

Posted in grad school, meta | Tagged , , , | 23 Comments

On being a researcher

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Brent

Edward Z. Yang recently wrote about applying to grad schools. This paragraph caught my attention: … I frequently switch between thinking, “Oh, look at this grad student, he didn’t start having any publications till he started grad school—so I’m OK … Continue reading →

Posted in grad school | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Binders Unbound

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Brent

Stephanie Weirich, Tim Sheard and I recently submitted a paper to ICFP entitled Binders Unbound. (You can read a draft here.) It’s about our kick-ass, I mean, expressive and flexible library, unbound (note: GHC 7 required), for generically dealing with … Continue reading →

Posted in grad school, haskell, projects, writing | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

The random graph

Posted on January 26, 2010 by Brent

Today in my finite model theory class we learned about the Rado graph, which is a graph (unique up to isomorphism among countable graphs) with the extension property: given any two disjoint finite sets of vertices and , there exists … Continue reading →

Posted in grad school, humor | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

The Poisson distribution and Stirling numbers

Posted on September 16, 2008 by Brent

While working on an assignment for my machine learning class, I rediscovered the fact that if X is a random variable from a Poisson distribution with parameter , then where denotes a Stirling number of the second kind. (I actually … Continue reading →

Posted in combinatorics, grad school, learning, math | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

First day of class

Posted on September 4, 2008 by Brent

I’ve been waiting for this day for four years now. It didn’t disappoint. This is shaping up to be a fun semester!

Posted in grad school | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Philadelphia!

Posted on August 4, 2008 by Brent

My wife and I have now completed our move to Philadelphia! Nothing much to report, really — the move went very smoothly with a lot of great help from friends, and we’re slowly digging our way out from under all … Continue reading →

Posted in grad school | Tagged | 2 Comments

Philadelphia, here we come!

Posted on March 14, 2008 by Brent

I’ve just accepted an offer of admission to the PhD program in computer science at U Penn! In particular I’ll be working with the PL group. I’m super-excited — especially since I’ve now been out in the “real world” for … Continue reading →

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