My unpronounceable earthly alias is Maja Gwóźdź. Believe it or not, this surname means ‘nail’ in Polish. Still, could've been much worse. I'll likely rebrand to Quibblar Vortifax, High Arbiter of Cosmic Shenanigans when I colonise Mars. For now, I'm stuck on Earth, so I'm keeping my mind occupied with academic hobbies.
If you’re after the boring version, here’s my CV: a gripping saga of deadlines, degrees, and dubious decisions. I hold a BA in English Studies, an MPhil in Linguistics from Cambridge, and a BSc in CS from LMU Munich. As much as it pains me to admit it, I also had to partake in the grim ritual of gaining work experience. A necessary evil on this mortal coil. The details are dreadfully dull, so I’ve graciously banished them to my CV.
My MPhil thesis was published, unedited, as a Springer book in the Speech & Audio Processing series, though it was hilariously rejected by their Linguistics series five years prior. Academia, eh?
I'm currently an MSc student at ETH Zürich, majoring in theoretical CS. My research interests have varied wildly over the years, but they've now converged towards (applied) algebraic topology and geometry.
When I'm not animating leaves in Spline or sprinting around like Forrest Gump on rocket fuel, I'm working on a thesis that explores the algorithmic aspects of spectral sequences and their application in torsion detection.
My academic journey has been a mosaic of spectacular failures punctuated by the occasional success, and it’s the former that truly defines me.
At this point, it's probably time to describe my academic philosophy:
I proudly identify as an intellectual masochist and perfectionist. Easy tasks bore me to tears, so I avoid them entirely.
Hard challenges? Sometimes I can’t complete those either, but they're extremely fascinating. And yes, they also bring me to tears, but at least I feel alive. I’d much rather fail at the impossible than succeed at the mundane.
I find life preposterously absurd and often wonder how humanity has evolved into whatever this is. So, I might just as well enjoy the ride while I’m here, as befits a proper existentialist.
The full story is probably best left to the imagination lest I get carried away, so let's wrap it up on a high note before chaos truly takes over. I’d say so much more, but I’ve been reliably informed that my strong opinions exceed the acceptable norms of human discourse.
That’s me in a nutshell. How I got into the nutshell is a story for another time.