Wonderfest Science Envoy 2020

Lawrence Peirson is a third-year PhD student in Physics at Stanford University and a NASA FINESST fellow. He graduated with an MPhys from Oxford in 2017 and spent his first year at Stanford in a number of different fields including theoretical neuroscience (drosophila fly brain modelling), AI (unsupervised learning), and astrophysics (relativistic black hole jets). Concurrently with his research he designed the first notable meme generating AI: ‘Dank Learning’, featured on the NVIDIA AI podcast. Following his true passion for the heavens he currently works with Prof. Roger Romani on high energy astrophysics, specifically on understanding polarized emission from relativistic outflows and using machine learning to improve sensitivity for the first X-Ray polarization telescope, IXPE, soon to be launched. Outside of Physics (and memes) Lawrence enjoys teaching and outreach at the student observatory, as well as competing for the Stanford judo and triathlon clubs.