Hi! I’m a software engineer, designer, and researcher. I work on technologies that expand what people can think and do.
Hi! I’m a software engineer, designer, and researcher. I work on technologies that expand what people can think and do.
I explore ideas by expressing them in real-world systems, juggling approaches from industry and academia to seek insights they can’t see alone. Thinking through making.
My current work follows five years at Khan Academy, where I led the R&D group, which I co-founded with my friend May-Li Khoe.
Before that, I helped build iOS at Apple, focusing on foundations like multitouch, animation, and inter-app coordination.
If you find my work interesting, please consider supporting future projects on Patreon.
What comes after the book? Weaving new media from ideas in cognitive science; using those systems to better see cognition.
What comes after the book?
Towards a theory of invention
An experiment in a new medium, making it easy to remember what you read
Work from my time at Khan Academy, where my team worked with teachers to invent novel interactive learning environments.
Creations from my time at Khan Academy.
Beyond right and wrong: scalable open-ended learning activities
Designing digital manipulatives to reveal numbers’ hidden properties
Reframing early numeracy around adventure, wonder, and creativity
When author and learner share a canvas
A syntactic trick to emphasize student agency
Reflections on the team’s design process
Mastery learning’s limits for complex skills
Bridging behavioral interviews and prototypes
The gulf between application and explanation
Designing peer interactions to avoid abuse
The limits of teaching without words
Using student work to arrange social learning
Notes from literature / market review
Enabling open-ended online learning activities
Designing math manipulatives for fluid use
Making abstract properties more visible
Introducing our math manipulative project
Helping students surf their learning edge
I’m fascinated by interfaces which can’t be designed through pictures: native to the dynamic medium, only designable with code.
Designs which can only be explored with code.
A pen which draws its own future using a realtime recurrent neural network
A realtime illusion of 3D depth using the device’s gyro and accelerometer
Balancing uncertainty and responsiveness in multitouch interfaces
Turning a virtual 3D page with your finger
Brief reflections on how I approach making and thinking.
Brief reflections on making and thinking.