Hi, I’m Luke, or more formally known as Lukas. I’m a German national with dual citizenship in the US. I was born in Wisconsin, USA but grew up in the greater Stuttgart area (Germany), which is known for its car industry and the Swabian dialect.
After a brief stint working in a closed psychiatric ward at my local university hospital in Tübingen, I decided to pursue undergraduate education at a small university in beautiful Scotland.
Despite my initial ambitions to pursue a career in clinical psychology, I discovered my analytical side when I was introduced to computer programming by a PhD student in the lab I was helping out in. I got very lucky in this regard as just prior to graduating, I was offered a summer internship at a London-based Data-Science consultancy. I enjoyed the work as it offered diverse problems to solve from different clients, but ultimately I felt that I should also seek formal education in data analytics.
The Behavioural and Data Science MSc at the University of Warwick was very much the perfect fit for me, as it combined my interest in behavioral research with my newfound passion for select topics in Computer Science. It was at Warwick were I first came to appreciate the application of computational modelling to describe cognitive processes. This was when things “clicked” in my head, and I knew that I wanted to pursue a PhD in this area.
I spent a very fun year working in the Applied Digital Behaviour Lab at the University of Bath while preparing my PhD applications and was fortunate to be accepted into the Cognitive Science PhD program at the University of California, Irvine, where I am currently working in Mark Steyvers’ lab.
