April 2016

The Hybrid Academic

Career Story Blog Post By Helene McMurray, PhD, Director of the Bioinformatics Consulting and Education Service of the Edward G. Miner Library and Assistant Professor of Biomedical Genetics

Mythology offers a wide variety of hybrid creatures comprised of bits of other, more garden variety animals.  From the Griffin, Chimera, and Sphinx to a horde of other creatures from various traditions  to the post-modern Rainbow Unicorn Butterfly Kitten (if you haven’t seen this on social media, run a Google Images search for the name), stories and images of mixed up, muddled up creatures abound.  For the past two years, these conglomerations are the entities with whom I most identify.  During that time I have developed and run the Bioinformatics Consulting and Education Service in Edward G. Miner Library here at URMC, which makes me a Scientist-Consultant-Educator-Librarian.