Hi! I'm Karina.

I see the world through a lense of mathematics and evolutionary biology. During my PhD I focussed on genomics and computer science, but the main superpower I developed is questioning everything. Why does the possibility space towards the end of a restaurant meal shrinks to a dessert menu? I like to finish a meal with a satisfying umami-forward starter, and to encourage others to imagine what choices they would make if they didn’t know what is conventional.

If I’d be teaching a class called Skills for the Future, the two main pillars of the curriculum would be attention and reasoning backwards. There is a lot of talk about the attention economy and how to get and keep someone’s attention; I’d like to shift the conversation to how to shape your life by choosing what you pay attention to. I think most people would benefit more from tracking their attention, than their nutrition. Reasoning backwards in a “what would have to be true, if…” manner is a useful skill for shaping the future and making progress on goals that have proven to be resistant to “this is true, therefore…” forward reasoning. Other topics in my Skills for the Future class would include how to set your own goals to avoid scoring your success on someone else’s metrics, how to cultivate the sense of agency despite being surrounded by recommendation engines, how to use writing as a tool not just as a method for producing a piece of text, and how to have meaningful conversations, because small talk won’t fix the loneliness epidemic.

I judge myself by the goals I choose to pursue and the things I choose to think about. I like change, because change is evidence that everything is temporary. When I think of everything in my life as temporary, it intensifies my appreciation of the good things, while annoying things melt into insignificance. I like being different in a non-disruptive way, like eating a starter while everyone else is having a dessert. Instead of peer pressure to fit in, I hope to extend a peer permission to be yourself, to explore beyond what is conventionally thought of as normal.

If you know why we should talk, see below for ways to contact me.