Paul M. Secular is a PhD candidate in physics and mathematics with a broader interest in science, philosophy, and the arts. He started his physics education at St. John's College, Oxford, under the tuition of Professor Sir Keith Burnett, Professor Tony Weidberg, and Dr Tchavdar Todorov. While at Oxford, he also gained his first experience of scientific research, taking part in a project at the Nuclear and Astrophysics Laboratory concerned with lepton pair production at the Hadron Electron Ring Accelerator.
He then took a break from his studies and worked for twelve years as a professional software engineer, acquiring skills in object-oriented design, database development, and web technologies.
In 2012 he resumed his degree studies, graduating four years later with an MSci in Physics with Theoretical Physics from Imperial College London. His Master's thesis, "Nonlocality & Impossible Machines", was supervised by Dr David Jennings. Areas of interest include the foundations of quantum mechanics, tensor networks, quantum information, complexity, chaos, relativity, and the philosophy of physics.