About Alex Wiltschko

Feb 9, 2015 • Alex Wiltschko

I was born and raised in Texas, then traveled north to earn a B.S. in Neuroscience from the University of Michigan. While at U of M, I was an active participant in the start-up scene at the forefront of the mobile software revolution. I created numerous iOS applications, including an educational app for Backyard Brains, a neuroscience kit for kids that is training the next generation of neuroscientists. After college, I moved to San Francisco, where I created audio apps that are still used by hundreds of thousands of people across the world, from audio engineers to teachers in middle school classrooms. My keen interest in the intersection of technology and biology led me to continue my education in science, and I am currently a PhD student in the Program in Neuroscience at the Harvard Medical School, mentored by Professor Sandeep R. Datta. I study how the brain, by only contracting and relaxing muscles, can create fluid action and body language.

When away from the lab bench or the computer keyboard, I enjoy landscape photography, playing squash, and practicing billiards.

What I found hardest about using Git the first time was… that certain operations felt irreversible. For instance, if you add a file to be committed, it’s not clear how to un-add that file. The reverse of many (most?) operations in git are completely separate operations with large impedance mismatches, in terms of complexity and thought required to execute properly.