Acknowledgements

It is day 3177/3177 of my time as a student at MIT. It has been a spectacular place to live and learn. My time here has transformed me in ways I could not have expected.

I have my advisor Neil to thank for bringing me here. Neil is a famous collector of high-quality misfits, and my peers at the CBA are representative of that. Thanks to them for the soup, and to Neil for bringing us together and building the mostly unstructured jungle gym that we get to mess around (and sometimes hurt ourselves) in, also for the state disturbances that ensure none of us fall into any local minima. Neil has routinely reminded me that if you are “making a nice box” for your research, you aren’t doing it right. That’s code for: don’t finish your projects, do the next one. Against his advice I tried to do both, the result of which is clear by the day counter above and the page counter in this document.

To balance Neil’s approach I am glad to have Nadya and Jon. Nadya is thoughtful and incisive, and I am grateful for her guidance especially in these last stages as I have tried to make sense of this block of work; if it weren’t for her, I would have probably handed this in and still not understood what was really in it. In places where the thesis makes sense, it is her fault. Where it does not, the blame is on me. Jon I have always admired because he is basically a piece of scientific infrastructure. That might not sound glamorous, but people like Jon make the world go around. He has helped me to understand how modelling and measurements are managed and made, and to see how the scientific-industrial complex operates behind the scenes.

Life is long and if you are lucky you will accrue many mentors. I have had this fortune; Saul Griffith gets credit for helping me to understand early on that the world is something we can rebuild, if we would like to. I worked for Forrest Meggers as he was starting his lab and he has been a friend and mentor since then, although try as he may to explain, I still don’t think I really understand entropy. Sam Calisch was basically my MIT big brother, he showed me that one can be cool and smart and kind all at the same time. Thanks also to the undergrads and students that I have had the chance to mentor, especially Samuel Schuur.

Work in this discipline is impossible without shop maintainers; they work harder than most and their efforts are invaluable; Zach Fredin, Anthony Pennes and Dan Gilbert.

I have had an excellent group of collaborators and colleagues as well. Quentin Bolsée and I have debated and discussed most of the topics in this thesis at length. Leo McElroy is a recurring (and wonderful) CBA interloper, and Ilan Moyer re-appeared at MIT close to the end of my time here. Alex Zimmer has been a stalwart friend since we met, and I expect that we will be at one anothers’ weddings and funerals (whichever comes first). These are my favorite people to talk about machines with. Also at the weddings and funerals are Emily and Ben Klein, Devora Najjar, Adam Haar Horowitz, and Elizabeth Antczak, just to name a few. To the countless friends that I have made here and elsewhere, I miss you all.

I have Miranda Li to thank for keeping my spirits afloat in these last months; it is a brighter world when we have a project to work on together.

Behind everything else is my family. Thanks to Mom for believing in me the whole time, and to Dad for teaching me how the world of stuff works and letting me make messes in the garage.

Thanks above all to my Brother, whose friendship and steadfastness I can always rely on.