My Journey to Open

Science and the Shared Self

As a kid in Philadelphia I loved researching, memorizing, and organizing information about baseball card prices. Even though the monthly card price-magazines cost as much as my allowance, I would scrap together enough change for each issue.

In high school I found refuge and inspiration in long-form journalism that my parents purchased, which opened up events in my mind with detailed human stories. In college I read ancient but now public domain texts that shaped political theory throughout the 16th-20th century and interrogated them with essay after essay. After college I used online resources to teach students how to conquer topics and tests as an academic tutor.

In my mid-20’s I was staying in a cabin in Colorado with no running water, and my connection to civilization was Wikipedia. Even as my mental health deteriorated and I isolated myself further and further from the world, Wikipedia was an open universe I still felt safe, useful, and valued in. After I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, Wikipedia helped me learn which medications were appropriate to help me recover. As I recovered, Wikipedia became my vocation and playground for bringing people together around open knowledge.

When the 2011 Egyptian Revolution was breaking in the streets, I helped hundreds of thousands of people…