OK, so you want to know about my life... Don't blame me if it gets boring. You asked for it.

I was born 25 years ago in Stockholm, Sweden, which is where I spent the first 23 years of my life. At an early age, I developed a big interest for sports, particularly orienteering. Today, I'm still member of a ski and orienteering club called Bromma-Vallingby SOK. During my very first years in school, I also practiced other sports, like soccer and ice hockey, with various results.

Between fourth and ninth grades, I attended a singing school called Adolf Fredrik in Stockholm. It was just like any other school, except that there were six hours of singing every week, at the expense of some less important classes... My class participated in numerous concerts, musicals, and even an opera at the Royal Opera House in Stockholm. In ninth grade, there was something going on almost every weekend, and eventually, it became too much for me. Whereas many of my classmates went on to singing high schools, I chose to attend an ordinary high school, and I even picked art instead of music during my first year, which would prove to be a fatal blow to my final grade... During our last semester together, the whole class spent a week on the island of Crete in the Greek archipel, using the money we had earned from participating in the opera.

For high school, I picked the natural science program at St Jacobi Gymnasium, since I'd always had a big interest for math, physics, and computers. I ended up in a class where I felt very comfortable. One of the other members of my club team was also in my class, and I spent a lot of time with my friends on the team, traveling and competing in all the different regions of Sweden. During this time, we also started playing a sport called floorball, a game played indoors using sticks and a ball. The Swedish winter can be a tough obstacle for running practice, and floorball was a good alternative during the long, dark nights of January. I still enjoy playing the game whenever I get the occasion. Although my class didn't participate in any opera, we did go abroad for a week during our last semester, this time to Marmaris in Turkey.

After high school came a somewhat different experience - the Swedish military. Even though Sweden has not been at war since 1814, it is still more or less mandatory to perform your military service. I was assigned to serve in the forces at Kungsangen just outside of Stockholm. The task of the batallion is also to defend the center of Stockholm in the case of a war, and therefore we had to learn to climb buildings, build shelters, and other tasks related to battle in a big city. Although this was not one of the favorite periods of my life, I still believe it helped me learn to endure the tough times in my life. I think that my biggest achievement in the army came when I was guarding the Royal Castle in Stockholm during the very eve of Christmas... there was not a single soul on the streets.

My undergraduate work was carried out in the School of Engineering Physics at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) with a major in computer science. During my first three years, I played badminton with some friends from school. Other than that, I didn't participate a lot in school activities, partly because I was still living at home, but also because I didn't really like the atmosphere on campus. I think the blow came when I got a plate of spaghetti and meat sauce thrown at me at one of the many parties. Instead, I spent a lot of time on my club team. I was the club secretary for two years, and I also helped organizing practices for the younger members of the club.

For the school year of 1996-97, I decided that I needed a change of environment. I applied and got accepted in an exchange program between KTH and Washington University in St Louis, MO. I really liked the atmosphere at this university and made some very good friends. Since orienteering is not a big sport in the US, I decided to join the varsity team in cross-country, which I thought would somewhat resemble to orienteering. It turned out to be a much tougher experience than I thought, the team had practice every day, but I made good progress and was convinced into continuing on the track&field team in the spring. To be able to do track&field, I needed an extra credit during the spring semester. Therefore, I decided to join the university choir, after seven years of no singing at all. Unexpectedly, I loved being on the choir, and now I try to participate in choirs wherever I go.

I got very inspired from my year in St Louis, and the following year I spent another year abroad, this time at an engineering school called INSA in Lyon, France. Here, I conducted my master's thesis in the domains of computer science and robotics. Like at Washington University, I participated in cross-country and sang in a choir. I very much like the French culture with its rich language, its excellent kitchen (however, not at INSA...), and its open discussions. I also managed to make some very good friends, and while singing in the choir, I met a wonderful girl named Helene.

Currently, I am a 1st year Ph.D student in the Computer Science Department, at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, MA. This year, I will be working in the Adaptive Networks Lab (did you notice how I love to put these little links?) with Professor Andy Barto as my advisor.

One of my absolute favorite activities is traveling. Apart from Greece and Turkey, I've visited most countries in Western and Central Europe, and I love seeing new places and talking to people from different cultures. I would really like to see some of the countries in South America, Africa or Asia, but for now, it remains a dream...