Career day

Two or three weeks ago I found a voicemail from someone who worked at my old high school asking me if I would be interested in participating in career day. Evidently alumni were being invited back to participate in small panels of 2-4 people to represent a particular field such as nursing, law enforcement, and the arts. I was invited to join the science and technology panel with two other people. Excited at the chance to give back in this small way to my alma mater, I said yes.

I hadn't really worked out what I'd say until yesterday when the nerves started to kick in. My public speaking experience is limited at best, and as far as audiences go, I figured high school students could be rough. I tried to stay optimistic that I'd be able to present to them as I did to my peers in my oral communications class about 4 years ago.

When I pulled into the parking lot, I found I was about 40 minutes early: Plenty of time to build up my nerves before taking the floor. Still, as people trickled in and conversations sprouted, I started to relax. I caught up with old teachers and classmates, and then went on an expedition to find a video adapter for my laptop. Five minutes before A period, it was evident that I'd be skipping the audio-visual portion of my talk -- fortunately I only had 4 slides, 3 of which were stolen from colleagues.

That nostalgic *bong* sound came over the intercom signalling the sound of A period, and Chris, Steve and I found ourselves standing in front of a class of about 20 kids between the ages of 13 and 18. We had 20 minutes each. Chris, the mechanical engineer would go first; then me; then Steve, a genetic epidemiologist would go last. Chris' talk was short and sweet, but he did manage some interaction with the classroom which was promising. I did my best to stick to the outline I had made, and used the whiteboard when necessary. I taught them the basics of high throughput microscopy screens, and then went on to explain how my group helps scientists analyze the images from these experiments. I told them a bit about the work environment, ups and downs. Lastly I wrapped up with the best advice I could give anyone interested in entering this or any field of study:

1. Do what you feel passionate about. If you can't, find a way.
   
2. When someone asks "what do you do" talk about your interests and goals. The best career opportunities come out of networking. Having good character is just as important as talent.

The talk couldn't have gone smoother! I left Steve exactly 20 minutes without feeling rushed or like I was trying to fill time. I didn't even get snagged in a tangent as I tend to do when I'm excited about something. Best of all, I was getting some good eye contact, even nods, and questions during and after the presentation.

Part of the reason the A period class was so un-intimidating was because the majority of the students were on the younger end of the spectrum; B period, on the other hand, consisted of about 25 students, most of which were juniors and seniors. Nevertheless, the presentations went off without a hitch: More good eye contact, and honest questions. After the bell rang, a couple of the guys sitting towards the front right were still hanging around so I gave them a look and they came over. Both were interested in engineering, but seemed a little apprehensive about the math required. This was a common theme for both periods. I explained to them that when I was a senior, I had only taken elementary functions, an "advanced" class, but still way behind the honors curriculum. When I got into college, it just meant I had to start a semester behind for math and physics. NOT the end of the world. They seemed relieved and thanked me before shaking my hand and heading off to their next class. Those two students made my day.

Hi, I Have a New Job, Let's Go To Amsterdam!

As of 2 minutes ago, I am officially accepting an offer from the Broad Institute, and will be starting work there within the next few weeks. Waaaahhoooooiiieeee!! To say that I am stoked would be quite an understatement.

Part of my excitement from this prospect has me seriously considering some impulsive behavior. Lemme 'splain. In talking about potential start dates for work, Anne (the Imaging Platform director) had suggested taking a week off before starting work. It's not a bad idea considering (1) the time I've been spending job hunting and working at Brontes, and (2) how much time I will be spending working at Broad in the weeks to come.

That said, I've found round trip tickets to Amsterdam for$438.00 (direct flight, tax & fees incl.). Madrid, Paris, Rome, Venice, and Athens are only slightly more expensive.

So who's in!? Wednesday, Feb. 27th - March 3/4/5/6...?
(Note, these tickets are $2,000-3,000 on any other day.)

[Correction: Feb.28th would be departure date as I am marching for babies with Ashley on the 27th. Without the science that this charity supports, I may not have a brother today. Chris was born 2 months premature, and lucky to make it out of the hospital after a month of in the NICU. I've never done a charity like this so I've set a modest goal of $50 to raise (compared to Ashley's $500.) So that means that you can help me get 20% closer to my goal by contributing just $10 to save babies that will ultimately look like this.]

PS: I just watched a lunar eclipse. Is that a sign?

Paper Hearts

I got the job! I was at Brontes on Friday when the imaging platform director called me and told me that they'll be making me an offer first thing next week. Even as I write this I still can't believe it. If I take this offer, I'll be spending forty hours a week coding; forty hours applying what I've learned in the past six and a half years to build an amazing piece of visualization software for biologists. This may be the best entry point into the industry I could have asked for.

Switching gears completely. Valentine's Day was great. I spent the entire day and previous night working on a Valentine for Ashley in the form of an installation piece in her room. I cut out, wrote on, and hung up over two hundred construction-paper hearts, turning the ceiling into a big, dangling rainbow. Ash blew me away by singing a song she wrote that completely captures the essence of our unique relationship in a folky beat. I love it, and I love that she's still surprising me with her talent. If I only played the banjo! Haha! Anyway, we capped the night off with sushi, chocolate covered strawberries, and champagne. Delicious.

Today we went for a long walk to Salem State and came back along a bike trail. Tim and Rae joined us for the rest of the day. We all went bowling, shopping, and saw a movie. It was the longest impromptu double-date ever.

Ash heads back to San Diego tomorrow. I don't know what to do with myself this coming week besides work at Brontes. Maybe I'll paint.

Broad and Brontes

I took the train into Boston/Cambridge yesterday morning for an interview with the imaging platform at Broad. Things started around 9:00, and I got to interview with 6 different members of the group up until 3:00. The thought of giving a presentation had me pretty nerved up on the way in, but it actually went pretty well. I was posed a lot of really good questions, and learned a good deal about the general setup and workflow: Who does what, how Cell Profiler Analyst (CPA) works, and so on. Right off the bat, I found myself comparing it to the UVP and JyVis, but the people interacting with it would be experimental biologists. The star feature of the software is a machine learning algorithm that lets biologists teach CPA to classify the cells as positive or negative for a particular phenotype. Overall, it's an extremely powerful (and useful) piece of software that needs an overhaul and some streamlining. Ideas were practically leaking out of my head.

Last night I headed to Salem for a little celebration with Tim and Ashley at the Beer Works. Then this morning, school was delayed at Bates so Ash and I got to sleep in.

I worked at Brontes for 9 hours today. Designed some new icons for VAMM, and ended up getting pretty good at drawing teeth on the Wacom tablet. The key being to keep in mind how many cusps are on each tooth and where. What ended up taking up most of my time though, was starting to clean things up and write some documentation for my eventual replacement. I wound up writing a UI Design Guideline reference. Once I started losing steam on that, I started another document to highlight current challenges and goals in the UI, and who to talk to when designing certain types of components. It was quite the mind clearing exercise. What's nice about this is that even if I'm still working at Brontes a month from now, I'll be able to build a stronger foundation of documentation and guidelines which will ultimately help the UI group standardize implementations for each widget. The more they can do that, the more they can automate, and the more they can automate, the more they can start thinking about more interesting things like implementing motion design and pushing the implementation of drag and drop functionality.

*sigh* It'll definitely be sad when I finally hand this all over to another designer. At the interview yesterday, I was asked whether there were any large scale projects that I took from start all the way to completion, and it feels like this is the only one. The ground we have covered in a year and a half has been tremendous, but there's still so much more I'd like to see done.

More Coding, Interviews, and Academics

» Yesterday I spent a couple hours to a program that visualizes (in 3D) the differences between pdb files. This is handy to see how my MD system compression script works.

» I also checked out Curran's JyVis platform from sourceforge and started tinkering. I have an idea to extend parallel coordinate visualizations to emphasize outliers, by clumping similar records. This marks my first experience with sourceforge and CVS. It's all easy-peasy with Eclipse! :]

» Today I decided to pay off my remaining 4 car payments before the final. I almost own my car!

» BioTeam contacted me this morning to set up a phone interview!

» Apparently I didn't fill out my graduation clearance form last semester, even though I thought I filled out a D.I.G. Therefore, I have to wait until this spring to get my M.S. degree. I'll also be paying $85 to keep "in status." Uhhhggg!!!

» The Lowell Winterfest Photo exhibit opens tomorrow. It feels so good to finally have those prints matted and framed.

» Tuesday I'm setting sail for Cambridge to take my first steps inside the glorious Broad Institute and interview with the Imaging Platform group. I'll be the first to interview for this position, so let's hope I leave a lasting impression. *crosses fingers* ...still, I'm not sure what work I'll present to them.

» Dr. Catherine Plaisant will be in Lowell on Wednesday holding colloquium on "Visualizing Patterns: Repetition patterns in text, and temporal patterns in Electronic Health Records." I met and worked with Dr. Plaisant at VAST 2006 in Baltimore and she left a good impression on me, so I'm looking forward to hearing her French accent again.

Dream / Jobs

Last night I had a very, very long dream. In words, it is too long to type, but too good not to mention the primary features.

1. I made friends with a real live gnome about 5" tall.
2. I could fly like superman.
3. I wore a deep sea SCUBA suit.
4. I was late for middle school.

Today I applied to BioTeam, a hardcore consulting company that custom builds solutions for life-science businesses. A coworker who knows one of the directors referred me to them. It's a long shot since the team is extremely elite, but if I'm lucky, maybe they're looking for a code-monkey with a background in molecular biology and user experience design.

To date, I've applied to 6 jobs at MIT's Broad Institute, and I'm beginning to fear their careers page is a black hole for resumés. I've got to make some calls.

Two More Jobs at Broad

I applied for two new positions today...

Software Engineer II - Tuberculosis Database
Associate Computational Biologist - Genome Biology Program

...follow up phone calls tomorrow.

Weekend, Interviews, and Photos

Tonight I have many scattered and relatively unimportant things to write, nevertheless I shall write them as they come to me.

First off, the Patriots are going to the Superbowl again! My whole family gathered together on Sunday and watched both games. I love this tradition. Speaking of traditions, Sunday also marked the finale of The Amazing Race. Ashley and I have been rooting for "the hippies" Rachel and TK from the start and they freakin' won! w00h00! Rest assured, soon enough we will applying for our chance to travel the world and win a million dollars! Saturday, the roomies and I threw a massively successful '90s-themed party. Good times were had by all who attended. Today (Monday) was strange, lots of little ups and downs that manifested themselves inside my head and my aching, feverish body. I'm happy to say, it is ending on a high note. I took a nice 2 hour nap and some ibuprofen around 7:00pm, and now I feel like a million bucks! Go figure.

This week has gotten off to a slow start, but I've still got a lot to look forward to. Tomorrow morning I'll help Silvi get started with my hexadecane research. Then Nick and I are meeting for lunch and our 3rd Matlab/C++ tutorial session.

On Wednesday I have a phone interview with the Imaging Platform at MIT's Broad Institute. The research group there built a piece of software called CellProfiler which helps biologists perform automated phenotyping of thousands of images of cell plates. This type of stuff is extremely interesting to me so I really want this job. I don't usually get nervous for interviews... this one I'm very nervous for.

Thursday I have another phone interview with eScription, a privately held company that leads the market in speech recognition software for medical transcription. I was actually contacted by the manager of the speech recognition and natural language processing technologies group about a software engineer role they are trying to fill. I'm very confident for this interview, but I really need to see what kind of company they keep before I seriously think about working there.

I'm trying to get an interview with The MathWorks for a position working on their SimBiology product. I'm keeping my fingers crossed on this one because I've heard this is a great company to work for, and the nature of the work is right up my alley.

Lastly, I've posted some new and old photos on flickr. Here are a couple portraits of girlf'iend...