Yonatan Munk

About Yonatan Munk

I\'m a scientist with a passion for the problems that span multiple fields of study. In my undergraduate degree, I studied the hydrodynamics of swimming snakes. I did my doctoral research on the aerodynamics of gliding ants, which allowed me to climb trees in the Amazon, build field-portable multi-view camera systems and wind tunnels, and construct robotic mineral oil tow tanks for 3-D printed insect models. In my post-doc work, I made immersive virtual reality flight simulators for hawkmoths to study their navigational behaviors. After my post-doc, I transitioned into industry, and established the Quantified Experience research group at Magic Leap, dedicated to driving critical engineering decisions on the basis of psychophysics research. I\'m passionate about science communication and education, and am currently exploring narrative-driven approaches for building societal understanding of important issues, primarily with regard to climate change impacts.

Experience

1. Chief Science Officer

   Tin Drum, Inc

   Oct 2017 — Present

   Responsible for internal tooling and data pipelines for the efficient display of high-complexity volumetric capture data on augmented reality hardware, including the Magic Leap One and the Microsoft Hololens 2. Technical director for the Tin Drum production *The Life*, developed in collaboration with the performance artist Marina Abramović, originally exhibited at the Serpentine Gallery in London in 2019 and later successfully sold at auction through Christie\'s in 2020.

Education

• University of California, Berkeley

  Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

  2004 — 2011

• University of Adelaide

  Bachelor of Science (BSc)

  2003 — 2003