I'm a series of spacetime events called Ricardo (or Richard). I was born in Florida to Cuban and Argentine parents (español es mi lengua materna). I'm a high tech low-life, an outdoorsy great indoorsman; voice-activated, user-friendly, self-cleaning, and compostable. I'm a non-believer and an overachiever, laid-back but forward-thinking, a supercharged subversive, a hands-on footloose. I'm a relentless nerd and SJW.
My dream is to use artificial intelligence technology for social good. Specifically, I want to make pedagogical chatbots. This lies right at the interface of my big passions: machine learning, education, and social justice. In general, I am passionate about learning, teaching, sharing, creating, community, nature, space, technology, and making the world a better place.
I have worked as a researcher at various universities – for a full list of peer-reviewed publications and projects, see my CV. I have many scientific interests: computational neuroscience, neural networks, cell biology, astronomy, cryptography, and more. For personal projects, check out my projects page.
After graduating in 2011, I bought a 1-way ticket to China. I've spent 4 of the past 5 years hitchhiking, backpacking, and bicycling around the world-- been to 27 countries so far. Lesson learned: I'm really good at being frugal!
At the moment, I'm quit the nomad life to take some courses on data science/machine learning and to construct my own tiny home.
I am involved in various social justice causes. To name a few: racial justice, economic justice, climate change, freedom of the press, anti-surveillance, institutional transparency & open goverment, reproductive rights, the open source movement & copyleft, election reform, community resilience, and much more!
I am also a fine-art and landscape photographer. Some of my works are in circulation in galleries around New Zealand as part of the Sir James Wallace's art trust. Check out my Flickr in the bottom of this page.