Participants of the 2nd Offtopicarium

Joanna Borowska

Criticism at Jagiellonian University, currently exchange student of the Humanistic Interdisciplinary Studies program at the University van Amsterdam. I try to extend theory of multidirectional memory and to discover practical methods of its use. Privately I am involved in a sexual education issues, especially lectures and tutorials dedicated to adults.

Zuzanna Borzymowska

PhD student in neurophysiology at Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology (1st year) and BSc student in mathematics (probably last year), member of Students' Neurobiology Society. I'm most interested in cognitive neuropsychology (at almost all levels). I also like climbing, role-playing games and LARPs, s-f books and strange people. And cats. Especially cats.

Bartłomiej Chromik

I am a PhD student at interdisciplinary „Artes Liberales” Department of University of Warsaw. I am a graduate of Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology (UW) and Quantitative Methods in Economics at Warsaw School of Economics. Currently I am involved in a few projects aimed at protecting and revitalizing dying languages and dialects of Poland. I like fieldwork (or rather I like people and thus they are my object of interest [what doesn’t mean I do not perceive them as subjects]. I come from Kęty.

Marta Czarnocka-Cieciura

I’m a last year MSc student of biology and math at University of Warsaw. I'm Interested in evolutionary and theoretical ecology, population genetics and agent-based modelling. Besides it I like strange creatures like parasites, fungi and slime molds. In free time I enjoy hiking, birdwatching, drawing and taking photos of nature (you can see my drawings and photos here http://martaczc.deviantart.com/). I’m a member of Students Scientific Circle of Evolution Biology on University of Warsaw (KNBE). Currently, besides of my master thesis, I’m working on project of measure genetic diversity of Warsaw population of green toad and on agent-based model of evolution of cooperation.

Natalia Derus

Last year of MSc in biology on Jagiellonian University and going to extend my adventure with this field for four more years. Totally in love with evolutionary biology, life history evolution, ecological physiology (physiological ecology?), evolutionary trade-offs and other eco-/evo- mixtures. Also interested in astrobiology, genetics, stem cells, popularization of science and so on.
I'm an (hyper)active member of Student Naturalist Society at the Jagiellonian University (leader of Entomology Section, editor-in-chief of Wychuchol - an example: http://www.e-wydawnictwo.eu/Document/DocumentPreview/2966).
In my free time I'd like to write a sf book (with a lot of "S"), but I'm too lazy and I'm just preparating insects, reading books (from Pratchett and Lem to monograph about springtails), playing Stepmania and cooking.

Wojtek Ganczarek

Last year MSc student of both theoretical physics (quantum entanglement, cold atoms in optical lattices) and applied mathematics (stochastic processes, epidemics/gossip spreading on complex networks) at Jagiellonian University. “After school”: contemporary history (Middle&Central East, Belarus), music (play guitar&ukulele), books (reportage, belles-lettres, history, ~philosophie), my religion (Catholicism), bike (addict), languages (in a way…), doing stupid things and coffee. But on the top of that: travelling to interesting places like Iran, Belarus, China, Karabakh, using almost no money for that, asking questions, often being accused of being a journalist [no! just a simple physicist!] and looking for problems there. Then coming back home and trying to eradicate stereotypes about those places, both by slideshows and on my site fizyk-w-podrozy.blogspot.com (this is, say, my project). What’s more about websites: I participate in creating pop-phys website fiztaszki.pl , mostly feeding it by stupid videos.

Ewa Infeld

I’m a second year PhD student in Mathematics at Dartmouth, working in Combinatorics. I grew up in Warsaw and have degrees from KCL, Cambridge and the LSE. I’m a geek (mostly a hardcore RPG player) and I have a thirst of adventure that gets me in trouble… but more often it takes me to interesting places and lets me meet fascinating people - and so in the last weeks it took me to East Africa and the people I met there gave me the content for my talk.

Piotr Iwaniuk

MS student at University of Warsaw majoring in computer science crossed over with mathematics, physics and psychology. Also a software developer at Titanis, where I work on Psychopy – a framework for psychological experiments. My interests include programming and programming languages, computer art, speculative fiction. In residuals of free time I travel, ride a bike, take pictures or play some game.

Emilia Jarochowska

Starting from this year, a PhD student in GeoZentrum Nordbayern, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. Previously a technical translator in Diuna, and graduate in biology and geology at the University of Warsaw. Translated from geologese to some more universal language, I’m interested in how the fossil record works: how much can we reconstruct events such as origination, extinction, diversification, gradual ecological and phylogenetic changes, based on incomplete data. Is there a pattern in incompleteness? Are some events preferentially preserved or lost? Do we create “hot” events such as extinctions by looking specifically for them? Besides, I’m very fond of such freaky beasts as graptolites, conodonts, marine algae, and love everything that is microscopic, old, and unknown to science. And, to be honest, I spend my free time on drinking :P

Magdalena Kasjaniuk

I’m Biologist and PhD student at Jagiellonian University. I study plant’s chromosomes. My live long love is plant evolution. I used to study chromosomes in genus Taraxacum. For PhD I’m going to study B chromosoms in Rumex. I’m also slime mold fan. I have spent some time studying Taxonomy of this beauty’s. I’m a member of Student Naturalist Society at the Jagiellonian University, one of the main editors of Wychuchol and tutor of just arisen Popularization of Science Section. Daily I bring up my cats and in a meantime I’m cooking something very good, read a wise book or watch documentary about some of world’s troubles.

Anna Kornakiewicz

I am a medical student, volunteer at the Military Institute of Medicine and a member of Collegium Invisibile. I am especially interested in translational medicine and oncology, as well as drug discovery, introducing drugs into the market and technology transfer in medicine. My specific interests involve breaking drug resistance, cancer stem cells, novel algorithms in combinatorial and targeted therapy in oncology. I was engaged also in projects connected with validation of drug mechanisms of action, and clinical validation a of angiogenetic biomarkers, especially in renal cancer. I also appreciate law and economic issues. I do really fascinate engineering in medicine, I love robots and cyborgs and various sophisticated mechnisms (for example watches). Moreover I love trains, travelling, horse riding and ballroom dancing. The same I can say about theater, rock, jazz, steam punk, victorian times, beautiful dresses and high heeled shoes. Most important words in life: desire, fascination, passion.

Vadim Kosoy

Recently software product/group manager at Mantis Vision. Formerly software/algorithms team leader at VisionMap. Expert algorithm engineer, mostly in the field of computer vision. Other interests include physics, mathematics, chemistry, molecular biology and history. Knowledgeable in high energy physics and mathematical physics. Dream about creating a global culture of meritocracy. Enjoy speculative fiction, various kinds of music (most notably rock & folk) and good cinema. Deist and Transhumanist

Marcin Kotowski

http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~mkotowsk/
PhD student in quantum information theory at the Institute for Quantum Computing (Waterloo, Canada). I’m also interested in pure mathematics (geometric group theory and probability). My other interests include: education of gifted students (tutor/co-organizer at KFnrD and SSS), open science, books (fiction, politics, history [esp. US], history of science, cognitive science etc.), music and guitar playing, mountain hiking, absurd humor (https://twitter.com/bestofbowie).

Michał Kotowski

http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~m2kotows/
PhD student in quantum information theory at the Institute for Quantum Computing (Waterloo, Canada). I’m also interested in pure mathematics (geometric group theory and probability). Other interests: education of gifted students (tutor/co-organizer at KFnrD and SSS), books (fiction, politics, history, history of science, cognitive science etc.), good music, guitar playing, mountain hiking, thinking in general, sociology of science, computer games… - more on my webpage

Staszek Krawczyk

PhD student in sociology (2nd year), with degrees in psychology and in Polish language and literature. My doctoral thesis is about the monthly journal “Nowa Fantastyka” (in English we might call it “The New Fantastic”) and I extend a couple of pseudopodia towards the Polish fantastic prose in general. I’ll be coordinating the scientific section of Polcon 2013, an annual Polish fantastic convention. My hobbies include table-top role-playing games, playing the guitar and singing along (run for your lives!), linguistic correctness and some other things I’ve apparently forgotten. From time to time, I work as a freelance editor.

Aleksander Kubica

2nd year PhD student in Physics at the California Institute of Technology, USA, in IQIM group: http://www.iqim.caltech.edu/. I’m working in the area of quantum information & computation. I’m interested in many aspects of physics and mathematics (quantum information, computation, graph theory, number theory). I love solving problems from IMO/IPhO/IMC. In my free time, I read books, play piano, bike, cross-country ski, play chess. Recently, I started learning Spanish. I like helping high-school students - giving talks/organizing workshops.

Grzegorz Link

University dropout (at least for now) - as for after completing all the courses for an MSc in theoretical physics (particle physics, supersymmetry), and calculating everything for the MSc, I've lost all the interest in my field, and left it unfinished. For a change, I drifted into the stock market and investing money - as far as to startup my own company, takityle. Possessed with the idea of creating something of my own, and impacting the world in some good way, namely by finding ways for people to make their material lives a little better.
My main interest lately is speculation, econophysics, and deriving how the financial world functions. Besides that, of course - physics (the micro and macro level), philosophy (questions of free will), mathematics and astronomy, especially the field of astrophysics. I write short pop-science articles for a magazine called 21.Wiek as a hobby, and am definitely addicted to all sorts of music, mostly rhythm & blues, soul & jazz. I dream of travelling around the world, and out of this world, without boundaries, Recently, fascinated by the art of cooking.

Krzysztof Maczyński vel ByteEater

I'm a freelancer in fields ranging from IT training, programming and various IT projects to educational initiatives and specialistic translations. I'm also an activist in the freedom movement in Poland.
Graduate of Studies of Mathematical and Natural Sciences (SMP) at the Jagiellonian University, major: computer science. Journalist at KonteStacja Internet Radio. President of KontestKlub Bielsko-Bialski and Klub Austriackiej Szkoły Ekonomii Bielsko-Biała. Amateur of chess, hiking, skiing and yachting. Geek of maths and then some. Incessantly eager to meet interesting people, share ideas and pursue common goals.

Maciek Malinowski

Currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in Physics at Magdalen College, Oxford (2nd year). Still undecided where to go next, but I feel I’m slowly drifting towards climate physics. I’d love to go to Arctic before it melts. While in Oxford, I help in the Mathematical Society ‘The Invariants’ (http://www.invariants.org.uk/), where I edit the annual magazine.
In my spare time I try to learn how to fly. I recently started gliding in a lovely UK town of Bicester, and I’m also in the process of getting solo paragliding licence. Aside from that, I love books (fantasy, general fiction, philosophy, interesting popular science), music, theatre and musicals. I also love to hitchhike and mountain-hike (however casually) whenever possible.

Paweł Marczewski

http://students.mimuw.edu.pl/~pm262952/
Right now a Mathematics undergraduate at MIMUW, planning to do a PhD in Computer Science next year. Interested mostly in logic and functional programming. I like to read science fiction (that’s probably why I’m infected with several transhumanist memes…), play Go, Mahjong and roguelike games (I even made two small ones). Currently trying to learn Japanese.

Piotr Migdał

http://migdal.wikidot.com/en
PhD student in Theoretical Quantum Optics at ICFO (Barcelona). Also interested in complex systems (esp. mathematical psychology, complex networks, data science), education of gifted high-school students (KFnrD and SSS), open science and science 2.0, Internet tools for collaboration and information-sharing (co-founder of Confrenzy, currently frozen - ConfrEEzy), designing a puzzle quantum mechanics game. Free time stuff: photography, hiking, cognitive science / philosophy of mind, playing SC2 and old/indie games.

Andrzej Nowojewski

http://www.nowojewski.com, http://naukazagranica.pl
A PhD student at Harvard University, Physics Department researching social interactions of C.elegans nematodes in response to pathogenic stress. Among my other interests are backpacking, travelling, emergent educational technologies (edX, Khan’s Academy etc). For the last few years i have been developing a website naukazagranica.pl that aims at spreading awarness among Polish high school/university students about opportunities at UK (Oxford, Cambridge) and US (Harvard) universitites.

Olga Pokorska

First year PhD student of psychology at the University of Warsaw. I’m interested in social psychology, especially in the field of intergroup relations, stereotypes and prejudice. I’m working with children with autism and Asperger syndrome and I’m studying polish sign language with the hope of becoming sign language interpreter. With my friends we are also working on a project for students with autism (www.wolontariat.ukrytypotencjal.org). My other interests are playing the piano, non-fiction literature, hiking. I’m a big badminton and volleyball fan.

Agnieszka Płonka

Last year MSc student, Warsaw University, geophysics (modelling convection in the mantle, examining interactions between the mantle and the core). BSc from Jagiellonian University (physics or actually SMP). Now I just came back from a seismology internship in Paris! I worked in an international group of this fantastic professor: http://seismo.berkeley.edu/~barbara/romanowicz.htm (we used earthquakes to study large-scale stuctures in the lowermost mantle, the most mysterious region of the Earth), and obviously I discovered Paris in spare time (meeting strangers in Montmartre and going to parties with them…). This year I visited Siberia (met buddhist lama in Sajany mountains, baked potatoes with Russian vegan Jew on eastern shores of Baikal lake, saw the most important celebration of Buriatian buddhism, went to Russian bania and drank vodka with the locals), wrote a story about Vikings, read poetic Edda (I love Nordic mythology and I’m fascinated by ethnic Slavic religious movements)… Before I worked in Switzerland for European Space Agency (in Paul Scherrer Institut), just to earn money for my travels (tested a particle detector). And I’ve been to Arctic Norway as well, I hiked in Lofoten and saw Tromso during midnightsun. I also did some surface seismology of Spitsbergen, but it wasn’t connected with my trip (here I say hi to the Arctic guy above me! Sad thing is that I did it in Warsaw, staring at the screen…). I have an enormous cat named Huncwot and he’s one of the loves of my life.

Dima Potekhin

I am a founding engineer of a startup called AcceloWeb that was acquired by Limelight Networks. Before that I was managing a distributed computing team at VisionMap.
I am an autodidact and I never formally studied since high school.
I studied Electronic music production for 2 years and I have a small studio at home.
Besides that I have many other areas of interest such as: music, history, philosophy, languages, religions, cinema, education, open science, origami, beer, more beer and more-or-less everything else :)!
I am listening to a huge amount of music. Here I publish the cool music that I find: Reddit, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, Twitter (they all have the same content).
I am really looking forward for the event and I hope to meet some really interesting people there :) It will also be my first time in Poland (and I wanted to visit it for a long time), so I plan to stay some extra days after the event ends. Feel free to crawl around Warsaw with me!

Pavel Radzivilovsky

Engineer, physicist and entrepreneur. I am a co-founder of VisionMap Ltd., a leading manufacturer of airborne mapping systems. I enjoy programming, teaching physics to school students and sailing. One of my dreams is revolutionizing the global energy market to use renewable and environment-friendly power sources.

Piotr Suwara

Bachelor student in mathematics at MISMaP (mainly at MIMUW), currently working on bachelor’s thesis. Interested mostly in pure mathematics (differential geometry, differential and algebraic topology), also in physics (mainly quantum mechanics). Linux and technologies fan, currently using Arch Linux.
Coorganizer of Summer Scientific School for high school pupils: http://warsztatywww.wikidot.com/en:indie-camp-for-hs-geeks
Keen on any kinds of cultural and intellectual activities of man, mostly cinema and music, but also literature, poetry and philosophy.
Spends much time being amused by Christian spirituality, influenced by st. John of the Cross, st. Augustine of Hippo and others. Due to this, a theology and liturgical music lover, singing as a bass in a choir and working on developing my musical skills.
Interested in sports, not only watching them in TV, but mainly playing volleyball. Lately quite interested in ‘knowledgeable’ and ‘reasonable’ bodybuilding.

Anna Szarla

MD at SPCPK WUM interested in interventional cardiology, cardiovascular surgery and pathology. Other interests include astronomy and physics. After work I love: sleepingoprócz (all possible positions), cooking (noodles, pasta), baking (cookies, cupcakes, muffins, brownies, Pavlova etc.), reading (Pratchett, Gawande), swimming, diving, skiing and listening to rock and metal music.

Jan Szejko

Currently-not-working-on-master’s-thesis student at MIMUW (computer science, computational linguistics). Also an Assistant Engineer in The Linguistic Engineering Group at the Institute of Computer Science, Polish Academy of Sciences. My current main project is an Open Source (MIT license) project Lexeme Forge (Kuźnia). A poster here.
I try to help KFnrD as much as I can, sometimes by working with students, sometimes by carrying heavy boxes.
My main hobby project right now is to create a palindromic limerick. I hope to achieve that before Offtopicarium and present the result in my talk.
Other than that, I play games on DS and indie games on PC and also board/card games like Carcassone or Power Grid and Riichi Mahjong, read Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality etc. Also, Lojban.

Marcin Ziemniak

Currently a PhD student in (mostly) bioorganic chemistry and (a little) in physical biochemistry at University of Warsaw (Faculty of Physics, Department of Biophysics). My research is focused on proteins responsible for decapping of mRNA. I synthesise chemically modified nucleotides and investigate their biological properties. Now I am about to go more into structural research (NMR spectroscopy, X-ray scattering). My scientific interests also include cognition science, neurobiology, planetary science and philosophy of science, however , they are only hobbies not connected (yet) with my area of research.
Apart from academic stuff I am fairly interest in cinematography (mostly horror, sf, superhero or weird/shocking movies) and music (preferably metal or electronic). Sometimes I like to read a book, take some photos or travel to (hopefully) interesting places. Recently I also pick up some martial arts and swordmanship.

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