Welcome.
Hello, I’m Richard. I am currently a PhD student in the Department of Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). My research focus is in computational neuroscience and cognitive science, where I mostly work on simulation and characterization of oscillatory and asynchronous neural population activity, and sometimes dabble in mining and analysis of other types of data. You can find out more in Projects, my CV, or our lab website.
Prior to that, I lived in Toronto, Canada for 11 years. It’s the place I call home, and also where I received my Bachelor’s Degree (University of Toronto, BASc in Engineering Science). I was born and raised in Xinjiang, China. There is a lot of grass, mountains, and also deserts there.
My blog is spanned by everything in my life, from musings to reflections to neuroscience to sports to science & technology to travels (to who knows what else). I ponder a lot about life and our place in this world, and I write about it. At worst, this website is a representation and a record of my life; at best, it becomes an inspiration to someone who will come back to inspire and educate me - on my journey to find mind from matter.
“The more science discovers and the more comprehension it gives us of the mechanisms of existence, the more clearly does the mystery of existence itself stand out.” – Aldous Huxley
Some Highlighted Blog Posts
Stuff that you might find useful:
- Tutorial on the Hilbert Transform
- Building a Jekyll blog/GitHub Pages (this) website
- Review of major reference managers (circa 2018)
- Notes from Cosyne 2019
Stuff I will always argue with people about:
- On the causal role of neural oscillations
- Looking past ourselves in neuroscience
- On theory and the reproducibility crisis
- We don’t understand cognition
- Combatting bias in science
PhD Reflections: