Joseph D. Terwilliger, Ph.D.

Joseph D. Terwilliger, Ph.D.

*This page is under construction – more to come*

Joseph D. Terwilliger is living proof that too many generations of Appalachian inbreeding can sometimes result in a surprisingly functional human being. Raised in Wawarsing, NY, a blue-collar town of 300 people in upstate New York’s Shawangunk Mountains, his career began in the fur trade – yes, really – selling raccoon pelts and skunk essence to buy a tuba. Because obviously, that’s what any financially responsible libertarian child would do. That solid business decision launched a lifelong career in questionable ones.

After earning a degree in tuba performance from the Peabody Conservatory of Music (because the world always needs more professional tuba players), he somehow convinced Columbia University to pay him to attend grad school, allowing him to continue playing music in New York while avoiding real work. Against all odds, he actually finished a Ph.D. in human genetics before anyone realized he didn’t belong there, leading to the only career path available for someone with no practical skills—academia. He then somehow ended up doing a postdoc at Oxford, which sounds much fancier than it really was.

Now a professor of neurobiology at Columbia, Terwilliger spends his time researching human genetics and epidemiology in places most Americans can’t find on a map (and the government probably wishes he couldn’t either), playing tuba and cimbasso wherever they let him (which has included some rather unusual settings), and doing deeply unusual things that somehow sound impressive on a CV. He once took second place in Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest (which, sadly, remains one of his greatest achievements – if only he’d eaten one more bite, he could have been somebody…), taught human genetics in Pyongyang (which sounds much cooler at parties than “I ran a workshop”), and helped Dennis Rodman visit North Korea (because why not?). He has also sung backup vocals on a Finnish heavy metal album, because life is strange, and so is Finland.

Somehow, in between these bizarre detours, he’s picked up an equally strange collection of languages, ranging from Kalaallisut (Greenlandic) to Finnish to North Korean dialects of Korean to North Sámi – most of which serve no practical use except for confusing TSA agents and impressing small Arctic communities.

When not engaged in academic work or making regrettable life choices, Terwilliger is a libertarian rabble-rouser who serves as Campus Co-Chair of Columbia University’s Heterodox Academy chapter and sits on the Board of the Association of Libertarian Educators, where he spends a lot of time explaining free speech to people who don’t actually believe in it. His work and general curiosity have taken him to well over a hundred countries, yet somehow, he still found time to walk every block of every street in Manhattan—twice. Once in just ten weeks.

A handful of people in the world have an Erdős number, a Bacon number, or even a Sabbath number. A few overachievers have managed to combine all of these. But when you throw Kim Jong Un into the mix, suddenly there’s only one guy left. Somehow, Terwilliger is the only known person with an Erdős-Bacon-Sabbath-Kim number of 10. Don’t ask how. Actually, go ahead, he has plenty of ridiculous stories to explain it, and isn’t that why you’re here?

Welcome to his collection of bad decisions, academic distractions, and improbable adventures. If you’re looking for a crazy manifesto, since I was told every libertarian is supposed to write one, mine may leave you disappointed, but you’ll probably be entertained by something if you click around the disorganized but voluminous set of links…

Like they say, an organized website is the sure sign of a disorganized mind 😉

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