Who am I?
I am a PhD student in the Department of Communication at Stanford University starting in fall 2006. I graduated in computer science at UC Berkeley in spring 2004, and received my Masters degree in Information Management and Systems from the School of Information, also at UC Berkeley, in spring 2006. Before college I attended Olympus High School, Olympus Junior High, and Cottonwood Elementary School, all in Salt Lake City, Utah. Check out the rest of my site and my blog to learn more about me.Why "morganya"?
Despite rumors to the contrary, my middle name does not start with "Y." (If you really want to know, it starts with "G." Bet you can't guess what it is!) Morganya is the only widely-used nickname I've had. While most of my friends took French in high school, I took (the immensely more practical, in my opinion) Spanish. One friend duly "Spanishized" my name to Morgaña, or "Morganya." The orchestra conductor picked it up, then my history teacher ... and it stuck. (And it beats "mames" or "morganga" as a username.)What do I like to do?
I often describe myself as a recovering computer scientist or, alternately, a budding social scientist. From many eclectic interests in high school (I was known as the local biology geek, was among the top scorers in the state math contest, and received scholarships in English and history upon graduation), I swung to the very technical side, studying physics and computer science theory, and then discovered human-computer interaction and, most recently, the area of science, technology and society and other social sciences. My interests may be wide-ranging but I am passionate about them and love to find interdisciplinary relationships.
When I'm not hacking away in cafes or pulling all-nighters for projects, I can often be found ballroom dancing. I was a member and officer of UC Berkeley Ballroom Dancers, which provides all sorts of social and competitive partner dancing opportunities, for six years. I compete in championship International Standard and have been known to dance novice International Latin, though I haven't pursued it competitively since 2003.
I have myriad and sundry other interests.
- I'm an avid amateur astronomer and have haunted planetaria throughout my youth, especially the Hansen Planetarium in Salt Lake City (now moved to a larger facility and renamed Clark Planetarium). I almost majored in astrophysics as an undergraduate, until I realized it was the amateur aspects of astronomy - telescopes, constellations, and folklore, was what I liked most. I worked for three years at Holt Planetarium, where I presented interactive star shows to small audiences, helped with script development, and ran Saturday Night Stargazing. Holt Planetarium is one of the last small, interactive planetaria in the world, and it was a joy to work there.
- I have a brown belt in wado-ryu karate. My dojo is on campus. I haven't followed up on my training for a few years for a variety of reasons.
- I love playing piano, and have also played carillon (those bells in the Campanile) and violin. One of my favorite piano songs is Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," which I played (in its 15-minute entirety) for my senior recital, and I also like Romantic and Impressionistic composers. I'd love to learn to improvise and play jazz someday.
- I have a penchant for the poetry of E.E. Cummings (his editors insisted on lowercase; I'll defer to his wishes on capitalization) that I picked up from Anthony Zerbe's amazing performance in Poetry in Motion. I like silly theater groups like The Reduced Shakespeare Company, who I first saw in Salt Lake.
- I like independent films. Good theatres for these include the Tower Theater in Salt Lake and the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley. I like Oakland's Paramount Theatre for old movies, and drive-ins because, well, they're fun. I wish the Bay Area had dollar theaters like Salt Lake City does. At least they have Film Night in the Park in the summer.
- I also like origami, Martin Gardner, programming in python, teaching, ballet (I had 8 years of classical training at Janet Gray Studios), modern dance, rollerblading, backpacking, writing, blogging, drawing, photography, and lots of other things.
- I used to be part of a soccer team (in early elementary school), a swim team (in elementary school), a dance company (in junior high), and a track team (one year in high school). I don't like running, though - my preferred method of transit is rollerblading.
Where am I from?
Salt Lake City is my hometown. (No, I'm not Mormon.) Despite its dull reputation, there are plenty of interesting nooks and crannies I've discovered there, and it's a mere 15-minute drive from the beautiful Wasatch Mountains. (It was actually a lot of fun to be one of the few flaming liberals in high school, but it probably wouldn't be as fun without a captive audience like that to shock.) I have lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1999.If I'm not Mormon, what am I?
Though my dad's family is Mormon and my Mom's is Catholic, neither my parents nor I am religious. If I had to identify with a religion, I did attend the Unitarian Universalist church for about 6 years as a child.My ideologies of choice include:
- Trade Observatory, Global Exchange, and other movements concerned with globalization, neo-liberalism, and corporate imperialism
- Electronic Frontier Foundation and the open-source movement (read The Future of Ideas by Lawrence Lessig for a good summary of this movement)
- Adbusters Culture Jammers and creative resistance
- Amnesty International
- Diet for a Small Planet (I was vegetarian for 7 years, and am still mostly vegetarian, under this philosophy)
- Sustainability
- Zero Population Growth
- The Brights, advocating a naturalistic worldview, and Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
- Berkeley Students for a Nonreligious Ethos
- Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives
I generally get my news at Slashdot, Google News, South Africa's Independent Online, and the inimitable Onion. Sometimes Berkeley's Heuristic Squelch has something newsworthy. Other am-news-ment include the Darwin Awards and Annals of Improbable Research.