About

Me

Hi, I’m Justin. I’m passionate about (computer) science, writing, and music.

Computer science-wise I’m specifically interested in topics at the intersection of simulation and AI. I currently pursue a PhD at the University of Rostock, where I’m investigating difficult inverse problems: how to infer interpretable, mechanistic simulation models from data? My work can be regarded as part of the emerging field of “AI for science”.

In the time I don’t spend at the university I like to sit down at the piano and hit the keys, play baskteball, participate in game jams, write, and cultivate this website.

This site

I like to think of the internet is a large space of digital gardens for people to visit. Some are extravagant, others are minimalist. One is friendly, another is hostile. Many are walled, but also many open to everyone.

This small digital plot I call my website is where I curate and share things I hope may inspire others, provoke their thoughts or even make them laugh. Hence, you can find here my published papers, but also some music, jokes, and my personal collection of accidental art (once I get to implement all these pages, that is :) My garden is open to every friendly person¹ interested. Why did I build this garden? And why should you think about also creating one? For me, there are three reasons.

First, its because this is what the internet is (also) about: sharing with others what you find interesting and love. Of course nowadays you can resort to these mostly awful places called social media. Even though all your friends hang out in these gardens, there is a variety of problems with this part of the internet. A personal website allows for your ultimate creative freedom without the ad-cluttered, doom scrolling cookie-monster nightmare.

Second, writing is a very enjoyable experience for me. I think, casting ones thoughts into a grammar-constrained sequence of symbols is not only a way to communicate ideas to others, but also essential to one’s own understanding. To this end, I love breaking down complex ideas into simple explanations or visualisations. Only then I know I really understood what I’m talking about.

Last, but not least, I’m a computer scientist and as such I like tinkering around with technical things. So hosting and constructing this site is also a kind of hobby for me. For the interested, this site is built using Hugo, the “world’s fastest framework for building [static] websites” (according to itself). The theme, templates, and stylesheets I use for rendering are build from scratch using HTML and SCSS. Feel free to use the “inspect” function of your browser to have a look.

If you have any feedback, comments or suggestions, you can contact me via email.