- I love to try on ideas like other people like to try on new outfits. There’s nothing more exciting for me than to learn a new way to think or to do something I previously couldn’t do. I learned later that this might be why I ultimately became a mathematician, since the Greek root of the word “Mathematics” is “mathein”, which means “to learn”.
- I originally *hated* math so much that I couldn’t even stand to look at it, never mind learn about it. There were so many better things to do, and the math felt like it was sucking my life out of me. I still don’t like meaningless puzzles (e.g. Sudoku), although I love it when a puzzle promises to uncover a deeper mystery about reality. In fact, physics is what eventually brought me to love math as a language for describing the world in a beautiful, and almost magical, way. The change from hating math to my weirdly intense love for it is why I teach the subject. I can’t keep to myself whatever happened to me (I still don’t precisely understand it).
- My wife and I met Lindy Hop dancing in Boston. My sister and I used to teach this form of dance at the University of New Hampshire, while I was working on my PhD. We would bring carloads of our students to Swing City in Cambridge on Friday nights to go dancing. I met my wife there, and took an absurd amount of time to work up the courage to ask her out. I finally did, though, thank goodness. This is the most brilliant thing I have ever done.
- I love martial arts, probably because it’s very hard to dualize mind and body while practicing them. I earned my black belt in Kenpo when I was 14, and as a teenager studied Kali, Escrima, Pencak Silat, Jeet Kune Do and Muay Thai. I practiced Judo in college for a short while and really enjoyed it. (I’m hoping to eventually find time to go learn more from Dan Moriarty!) I’m trying to learn Taekwondo with my children, and it’s really fun. It’s especially nice to practice these things as I’m getting older, because even the littlest things feel like such big accomplishments (like not throwing out your back)!
- Originally, I wanted to be a jazz musician. I played saxophone in a jazz band for a bit, and *loved* improvisation. Most of what I was doing was by ear, though, and I didn’t have the “fire in the belly” to quote Jim Matthews, to become a musician. For me, music was an excellent way to deal with being a teenager, though. I still play around with several instruments…mainly the guitar, but nothing serious. Just messing about.
- I was homeschooled.
- I love languages, and like to collect bizarre phrases from other languages. I can speak enough French to survive. I am unreasonably proud to have been able to make an effective pun in French while living in Québec City. I once came upon a room full of francophone students watching a James Bond film in a university lounge. I got a good laugh out of them by saying: “Je m’appelle Bond, jambon.” It’s the little things in life, right? I’m currently trying to (slowly) learn Mandarin Chinese. My PhD advisor was Chinese, and I’ve been to Shanghai and Beijing.
- I was born in Malden, Massachusetts, near Boston. I grew up in Newburyport, MA and then moved as a teenager to Wolfeboro, NH. Both my maternal grandfather and my father were very seriously into baseball. In fact, much of my early life was spent playing baseball. I was a catcher (as my father was before me). I loved to hit and studied and practiced the mechanics of hitting obsessively. My maternal grandfather actually hit a home run into the net of the Green Monster at Fenway Park during an exhibition game (a story he loved to tell me). My father, when he was 15, was drafted by the Boston Braves, but couldn’t go because he was too young, and the opportunity didn’t come again. My Dad died in 2021, but before he went, my wife and I did some digging and found out some things about his family that even he didn’t know or clearly remember. My great grandfather played on the Boston Beaneaters, and had one of the most bizarre nicknames in MLB history: Jimmy “Foxy Grandpa” Bannon (see, below).
- My Dad owned apartment buildings in South Boston, and as a teenager I used to help him work on them and fix them up. It was so wonderful to have spent this time working with my Dad. Once, something very bizarre happened. One of the tenant families was from Albania, and they told my Dad that Robin Williams was on the roof of the building recently. We didn’t believe this, of course. A while later, while I was at UNH doing what I always did, hanging out in the math and physics buildings writing on blackboards, some of my friends wanted me to go see a new movie called “Good Will Hunting” about a math genius from South Boston. I hadn’t heard of the movie, but I went with them. In the middle of the movie, there was a fight scene on a basketball court. It was the basketball court in front of my Dad’s apartment building. Evidently, Robin Williams WAS on the roof!
- My family and I had the great privilege of living in the UK in 2019 (pre-COVID), on a Fulbright Scholarship. (Students contact Matt Schiesel about applying for the Fulbright program, it will change your life!) This was, in every way, a dream come true. The cohort of fellow Fulbrighters were inspiring and engaging people who were doing mind-blowing things to make the world a better place, and the adventures my family and I had with new friends (many involving hiking in the beautiful Lakes District) were unforgettable.
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