Alistair Isaac received his B.A. in East Asian Studies from Harvard University, where he wrote his undergraduate thesis on the role of dystopias in 20th century Japanese literature. After several years pursuing a career in music in Houston, he returned to academia and received his M.A. in philosophy from the University of Houston in 2004. His master's thesis discussed strategies for modeling abductive inference in cognitive science. He is presently beginning his sixth year in the Ph.D. program in philosophy at Stanford University. Continuing his interest in cognitive science and interdisciplinary work, his dissertation develops a theory of natural information and applies it to color perception.

In his spare time, Mr. Isaac continues to make music (most recently, he's been playing old time fiddle tunes). He is also an amateur filmmaker and recently completed his first feature film, "Pleadings."