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Dean’s Blog: The Joys of Being an Academic
With some challenges seemingly on the horizon for an academic scholar, I felt it was the perfect moment to share one example of the pure joy that comes with being one.
I write while returning from The Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing (PSB), an annual conference in Hawaii. This year, the conference celebrated its 30th anniversary. While the data are in dispute and my memory is not what it once was, since 1995 I have attended around 25 of the meetings that trace my career through my time at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and now the University of Virginia (UVA). I have watched colleagues and friends grow old as they have watched me head in the same direction. You do not go to Hawaii without taking your family, and so we have watched each other’s children grow up and flourish. This, while hearing about and contributing to science which has seen profound change over those 30 years. The best part? We wear silly looking shirts without anyone blinking an eye.
Over these years a routine has emerged with different groups of colleagues, now friends. We meet each night for dinner to catch up on the past year. The conversations, where before we discussed our latest scientific and personal adventures, are now occupied lamenting the latest ailments. Let me share one such gathering.
When we started attending PSB thirty years ago, David Haussler (UC Santa Cruz), Russ Altman (Stanford), and I were just starting to help influence the role of computation in biology and medicine, mainly through work in genomics and proteomics. David and Russ are now leaders in the field, and we all look back with a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. Our spouses Lu, Jeanne, and Roma, respectively, are equally accomplished in the non-sciences.
Over the years, our meet-ups have ranged from the state of the world, to (in later years) what we are streaming, to our kids, and of course fundamental developments in our field. In the late 90’s and early 2000’s, the hot topic was the use of Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) for use in DNA and protein sequence analysis, pioneered by David and others. In the 2010’s, when the full impact of the human genome took hold, we discussed pharmacogenomics–the realization that one’s genetic makeup impacts an individual’s response to certain drugs and was pioneered by Russ among others. Finally, today is how AI is, and will, change everything.
Six souls with common interests who leave Lava Lava, the beach restaurant where we gather every year, with aching sides from laughing and a sense of how good it is to be with friends. This would not have happened if not for a life in academia. We have been free to pursue common interests and have had the privilege of gathering every year in a truly beautiful place to share each other’s company. There are very few professions that offer that opportunity in such a sustained way. This is something to aspire to for younger members of the academic community. I can only wish you the same joy should you choose such a pathway.
An academic path is likely to have a few obstacles in the years to come. Uncertain funding for research, more oversight of what is taught, and a rapidly changing marketplace that will require new modes of teaching, updating what we teach, research methods, and research problems that are very different. In short, the higher education system will undergo change. Amidst this change, I take heart that my friends will be waiting for me next year at Lava Lava, coconut shrimp in hand, and we will find a way forward together. Such is the best of being an academic. I highly recommend it.