Andres Marrugo

I have been reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky over the past few weeks. More than a novel, it is a psychological journey. Dostoyevsky manages to place the reader inside the mind of a person enduring what seems like an endless internal conflict. Perhaps the greatest punishment we can receive is the one we impose upon ourselves, and Rodion Raskolnikov has done so in many ways. I nonetheless have a peculiar way of approaching Dostoyevsky. While Raskolnikov lies in bed lamenting and suffering alone, I cannot help thinking about what else must be done. Suffering may reveal the conscience, but it does not necessarily repair the harm. ...

“Why aren’t you doing important work?” — Richard Hamming There is a quote by Søren Kierkegaard that goes something like this: life is understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. I never fully decided to become a researcher, or an academic for that matter. It simply happened. Yet when I look back on what has now been most of my professional life, it is difficult to imagine things unfolding any other way. ...

I came across the above image today. One of those neat, confident grids listing the “Top 100 novels.” A canon in miniature. Ambitious, serious, well argued. I recognized many of the spines. I have read several of them. Some are better than others. Some mattered deeply at one point in my life and then receded. Others I admire more than I love. Lists like that always tempt us to believe that reading is cumulative, that it works by completion, by coverage. As if one could finish literature. But novels do not really work that way. They are not milestones so much as encounters. And encounters depend on timing, on who one is, on what one is carrying at that moment. ...

I’m listening to The Rise of the Novel from The Great Courses—a fascinating journey through a genre we take for granted today, yet which wasn’t always part of our cultural landscape. Many scholars agree that the first true novel was Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. I had known this for a while, but never really explored why—or what that meant at the time. In this course, professor Leo Damrosch, an expert in literature, guides us through these questions with a rare clarity. He reminds us to approach them from a distance, aware that we belong to a different culture and time. We inevitably bring our own lens to the discussion, yet must also imagine how the people of that era understood these issues. ...

The quest to find oneself—to find that which moves you, that which makes you you and not anyone else—is, in a way, the shape of one’s true purpose. Often, it is also that which you must keep explaining, because you simply can’t help it. It insists on being. Over the course of an intense and immersive week at that old lighthouse of minds—where history hums through hallways and questions hang heavier than answers—we, as a cohort, but I especially, revisited the thread of purpose. Mine, it turns out, has always been quietly there: to invite others to join the great conversation. ...

I teach a course on scientific writing for graduate students—an endeavor that, at first glance, might seem quaint in an age where artificial intelligence drafts emails, summarizes research, and even suggests titles more clever than our own. But far from feeling obsolete, I find it thrilling. Because what I teach is not just how to write. It is how to think. And thinking, as it turns out, begins in the hand. ...

There is something to be said about reading fiction—it is fundamentally different from watching TV, movies, Netflix, or scrolling through Twitter and TikTok. When you read, your mind has to make a leap. You convert words—abstract symbols—into images, sensations, and meaning. It is one of the most complex mental operations we’re capable of, and it doesn’t happen passively. You have to train for it. Reading fiction, especially the literary kind, is not effortless consumption; it is deliberate imagination.1 ...

As I was scrolling through twitter, I happened to come across this beautiful thread that spoke of the lessons learned by a researcher while contemplating his research in the grand scheme of things. Though he was passionate about his research and the questions he was trying to answer, there would come a time when future researchers - with the advantage of hindsight - would contemplate his work as obsolete and irrelevant. But the truth is that we all have to come to terms with this situation. ...

Last week I attended the OSA Latin America Optics and Photonics Conference in Lima, Peru. I had a great time, but above all, this was my first conference, since I started my lab, in which I didn’t feel so out of place. Let me elaborate. I knew several people that were attending the conference, I knew the work of some of them, and I was also comfortable talking to old and new acquaintances. What I felt was more reassuring, was presenting some of the work we’ve been doing in our lab for the past two years. I was proud to be presenting the work of my students, what we have accomplished with the available resources. ...

I like to do presentations. I really do. It’s not my favorite thing, but I sure love inspiring others from the work I do. Ever since I learned of many creative ways to prepare a presentation, I’ve liked to undertake the task with a sense of commitment and a great dose of creativity. I read the Presentation Zen book. The The Non-Designer’s Design Book. I learned about Sketchnotes, I also read about academic presentations and cooking ideas, and many other things. Not in a single stretch, but as a constant search for getting better at something I value. So I’ve come to realize a couple of things. A presentation is definitely not prepared in the computer or presentation software. A computer per se is not good for the creative endeavor, but paper and pen are. ...