About me

Hello!

I’m Abhay Goel (he/they). I wear lots of hats in my life - I’m a mathematician, a musician, a dancer, an activist, a teacher, a student, a gamer, a decent cook, a software engineer, a partner, an artist, and likely much more. I generally believe that if there is something that can be done by a person, then I can be that person - I just need to try and likely do a terrible job. It’s highly motivating and reminds me not to just be one thing at any given time.

Unfortunately, this point of view makes it difficult to write an about me page: where do I begin? Following my own advice, I’ll start somewhere I guess! ¯\(ツ)/¯

Mathematician

I have loved mathematics essentially my whole life. My favorite topics come from studying symmetry - i.e. group theory - especially in the context of number theory.

Musician

I’ve played music in some context since I was 10 or 11 years old. I started with piano and quickly moved to mallet percussion. My favorite instrument, which I’ve unfortunately not played for many years, is the marimba, with the vibraphone taking a close second. I also played other percussion for my middle school, high school, and marching bands.

After high school, I started branching out into other instruments. In college, I played more non-Western percussion, especially spending a lot of time learning Taiko drumming from my teacher Esther Vandecar. After college, I’ve continued branching out, with my primary instruments for the past few years being the (Persian) santur, the dhol, and the (tenor) ukuklele.

Dancer

Growing up, I danced “Bollywood” style, which was really just members of the Desi community teaching a bunch of elementary schoolers to perform a simple choreography. I’m happy to have started this way, since along with piano this really cemented my inner metronome and translated it to all parts of my body. I continued this until it was no longer “cool.” In my last few years of high school, I remembered how much I enjoyed it and picked it back up with some friends.

Going into college, I wanted to expand my repetoire, so I took classes in ballet, modern, and salsa, and went to club meetings around swing and bachata. (Can you tell I went to a PWI?) I also spent time with Frelon Dance Company as a dancer; a choreographer; and, for one year, a co-leader. I danced most of these styles with the company, but I also reached out into self-teaching Bhangra.

I then went into the workplace and my dancing largely stopped. I didn’t dance in my apartment, with coworkers, or at classes, and I rarely went to clubs or parties.

After 2-3 years of this, I moved states, and in the new city I found a performing Bhangra group. I’ve danced with that group ever since and perform quite regularly.

Activist

Come talk to me if you’re interested!

Teacher

I’ve taught in various capacities in my life. In high school, I worked as a math and computer science tutor and grader, which included holding weekly office hours for students who sought help. In college, I continued this, working largely as a teaching assistant for various mathematics classes and working in my college’s Math and Physics Center, which was intended just as a collaborative space to work with a few tutors to answer questions as they came up. At this time, I also taught fusion Bollywood/Bhangra choreography.

Now, as a graduate student, I have worked as a tutor, teaching assistant, and full teacher for various courses.

In general, I am very interested in pedagogy. I need to spend some time drafting a proper teaching statement, but some of my basic principles are:

  • Pedagogy must be taught rather than assumed. A good mathematician(/dancer/scientist/etc.) is ↷not automatically a good teacher.
  • Most learning happens via doing rather than via being lectured at.
  • Teaching is a reciprocal process and treating it hierarchically decreases efficacy for everyone involved.
  • Equity is more important than equality when it comes to a teacher’s time.
  • Grades:
    • They are an overloaded concept, which causes tension:
      • They are supposed to represent understanding of course material on an unweighted scale (i.e. not relative to their classmates, previous years, or other schools).
      • They indicate to employers a measure of hireability.
      • They are interpreted by students as a measure of worth (incorrectly, but at no fault of the students).
    • They are usually less useful to both student and teacher than more explicit feedback (yes, even for mathematics).
    • They entrench and reproduce social inequity unless corrected for explicitly.
  • The goal of teaching should be to engage each student to learn something they didn’t previously know. This is often difficult, as lecturing on a specific topic will benefit only those students who 1) don’t currently know the topic and 2) know enough background to understand the topic.
  • Opportunities should be provided for students to learn from each other as some learn better from their peers than from teachers. Conversely, students should have sufficient access to their teacher as some learn better from an instructor.
  • Testing should be a way for students to reflect on their knowledge and is not a good time to introduce interesting or clever problems (unless the in-class relationships are strong enough to allow students to thrive with such problems).

Student

To complement the above, I’ve also been a student for most of my life. While I don’t think of it as necessarily fundamental to my identity, I would be remiss to ignore the ways it impacts my life and thoughts. In particular, I need to acknowledge the massive impact various teachers have had on my life. I am deeply indebted to my high school English teachers, my high school mathematics teachers, my college mathematics professors, my dance teachers, and my partner, to name (or not name, rather) a few.

I also recognize that the system as it exists today encourages students to largely be consumers and takers. While I want to break down this relationship and engage with students more fully, a consequence for my life is that I feel a debt owed for the knowledge I’ve received as a student myself. I hope to find a way to give back to my community and to share my power throughout the rest of my life.

Gamer

“Gamer” certainly has a specific connotation, and I both accept it and want to extend it. That is, I do sometimes parallel the image of an individual frozen in place, staring at a screen, controller (or mouse) in hand. But I also just love games more generally–board games, improvised games, word games, etc.

I play chess (chess.com username: abhay11), though I’ve hardly devoted time to study it properly. I haven’t ever played minecraft vanilla, but I love modpacks, especially Regrowth, Skyfactory, and Sevtech Ages. Among board games, I like things with some role-playing aspect (like Spirit Island or D&D), or things that are very simple (like backgammon, solitaire, and minesweeper). And of course, ↷the factory must grow.

Cook

Ooh, I should put a list of recipes here! I’ll get to that. In the meantime: I mostly like making Indian food, and I don’t like measuring things.

Software Engineer

You’d think I would’ve put this higher up. I worked for 4 years at Google as a software engineer, and I really enjoy the work involved therein. Designing a system to pass and process data well is exciting and scratches my “measure twice, cut once” itch without having to use a saw.

Partner

My partner, Yasi, is the most important person in my life. I would not be nearly as confident, revolutionary, contemplative, powerful, artistic, or intelligent without them. Likely any good photo of me on this website (or anywhere) was taken by them, and if I’m competent at any board games, it’s likely because I’ve played with them and lost a handful of times.

Love you, Yas.

Artist

This one is (currently) last for no particular reason. I have already noted some of my favorite art forms above (dancing, playing music, etc.), but I’m also learning and playing with doodling, animating, crocheting, and various circus arts (partner acrobatics, diabolo, and juggling mainly).