During the week, Juliana Cherston is a PhD student in science and engineering at the MIT Media Lab. She says that “a crucial aspect of my job is to cultivate comfort at the frontier of knowledge. An experiment might be stubborn for months on end, and it’s not clear whether there’s just a faulty cable somewhere or whether the entire premise is flawed. How can I practice joy, play, and wonder in these moments, even when deadlines and expectations are piled on top? Bike exploration is basically a physical arena to practice the same psychological process that I strive to nurture in the laboratory. Isolated on routes that sometimes defy modern maps, there is a freedom and playfulness that emerges in face of the unknown. It’s an intensity of sensory experience steeped in the cultivation of self trust, an antidote to anxiety whether in the lab or on the roads.”

Read more of her explorations on Medium, or on her personal website.