Hi! I’m Étienne.
(Pronounced, roughly: ay-TYEN. The acute accent is optional, unless you’re fluent in French.)
(Picture taken in October 2020 in Montreal’s parc du Mont Royal. Now I have a beard.)
I’m a generalist who writes and codes from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. My interests are diverse: writing, science, philosophy, progress, communities, history, and many others.
Projects:
- Every week, I publish a post on a blog called Atlas of Wonders and Monsters on topics like philosophy, history, science, or other diverse interests. It’s the easiest way to subscribe to my writing. You can also become a paid subscriber if you want to support my work.
- I’ve published work in widely-read outlets like Astral Codex Ten and Works in Progress.
- My Twitter account is reasonably large; my main goal on there has always been meeting cool people, and that has succeeded beyond my expectations. My main claim to fame there is a viral thread on the miracle of cakes.
- My main professional occupation is as a contractor for Ought, where I do data and software work to help extract information from scientific papers using machine learning.
Previously:
- I studied evolutionary biology in Sweden, in France, and at Harvard, and biology and computer science at McGill University in Montreal.
- I was part of the first On Deck Writer Fellowship.
- I worked part-time in the Interintellect team, helping people host intellectual discussion salons.
- I wrote a blog in French, on hiatus at the moment.
- I wrote a blog in English called Dark Gray Matters, which got more or less replaced by my other blog.
- I’ve written some fiction, including several novels that are as of yet unpublished, and a few published short stories in French (one of which has been adapted into a short film).
- The Journal of Accessible and Well-Written Science (JAWWS) was a project to research and exemplify better writing norms in academic science.
- The Classical Futurist is an online magazine I cofounded with two friends to write about the future from the lens of antiquity. I wrote and edited many good essays there, but am no longer involved.
- I’ve been previously involved in Cabin, a community that creates physical spaces for online creators.
For more, see my résumé on GitHub.
Contact me on Twitter or by email. I love to make new internet friends, so don’t be shy!