I am from Botoșani, Romania, a region which (perhaps coincidentally) spawned several of Romania's foremost intellectuals, writers, and artists. ¹

Contrary to my life advice, my sister Ştefana is pursuing a PhD in gut microbiome research at the Center for Eating and Feeding Disorders Research and the University of Copenhagen.

Outside of work, I like doing things that have nothing to do with AI whatsoever. Some activities I enjoy are learning languages (see below), reading widely, listening to (live) music, expressing second-rate opinions about art, and lifting weights.

Languages

I am an aspiring polyglot and find language learning to be a very worthwhile activity, both in terms of promoting cross-cultural awareness and communication as well as its benefits on cognition in general. I am currently focused on Romance and Germanic languages, but plan to venture beyond Indo-European languages longer-term.

• Româna este limba mea maternă.
• I've spoken English for as long as I can remember.
• Mi Español es bastante avanzado, y tomaré el examen DELE C1 del Instituto Cervantes en el noviembre de 2020 retrasado por culpa del coronavirus.
• J'ai etudié français dans le lycée (et j'ai obtennu le DELF Scolaire B2), mais il y a longtemps que je ne l'ai utilisé pas.
• Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch.
• Parlo un po d'italiano.

Trivia

My Erdős number is currently 4, owing to the following path:

Victor-Alexandru Darvariu -> Stephen Hailes -> Karl Henrik Johansson -> Béla Bollobás -> Paul Erdős.

Curiously enough, my Bacon number is also 4 (I did some amateur acting in college).

Victor-Alexandru Darvariu -> Alexandru Voicu -> Marcel Iureș -> Tony Plana -> Kevin Bacon.