The first week of December was a whirlwind. I kicked it off by attending NeurIPS. As someone doing reinforcement learning (RL) research, I was blown away by the amount of attention the field garnered. From applications in autonomous driving to continual learning, RL has re-emerged as the critical tool to navigate complex tasks where supervised learning falls short. I was particularly impressed by papers that showcased new and creative RL environments, demonstrating both single and multi-agent capabilities. I also had the pleasure of meeting new colleagues and discussing research. There is no better way to incubate paper ideas than brainstorming over a meal. It is safe to say that RL is back!
While at NeurIPS, I received an email that a company would not be moving forward with my internship application. However, I remained uplifted by the numerous tech giants seeking AI researchers. Chatting with recruiters and researchers gave me an opportunity to share my work and motivated me to continue the pursuit of the right role.
My week was far from over. On Friday afternoon, I flew to Sacramento to run my first marathon at the California International Marathon (CIM). Reuniting with former teammates from Pomona-Pitzer and UC Santa Cruz brought a convivial energy to the weekend. Given that this was my debut and I had just come from a conference, I went in with zero expectations. Sunday at 7:00 AM, I toed the line, reminding myself to stay patient and let it rip with 10k to go. At 9:22 AM, I crossed the finish line in 2:22:37. Up until that point, the farthest I had ever run was 20 miles.
Throughout high school and college, I balanced academics and athletics. However, attending NeurIPS and running CIM felt like the apex of my dual optimization. I couldn’t have pulled this off without years of doing homework on buses and racing alongside teammates - rinsing and repeating every weekend.
Running has taught me that a stopwatch waits for no one. Time is finite. You can only make trade-offs with time, never “make” time. As we enter 2026, I’m reflecting on how I allocate my time. Admittedly, there are race days where I am an athlete-student and school days where I am a student-athlete. I’m proud of the runner I’ve become, but I know the researcher in me has another gear. NeurIPS lit a fire in me to close out my PhD the way I closed out my marathon: unexpected and triumphant. Here’s to 2026!
