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.  

What I love about my job

By Stephen Dewhurst, PhD, Chairman of Microbiology and Immunology, and Vice Dean for Research, University of Rochester

One of my least favorite things in life is to talk about myself – or worse yet to act like I have some special insight or wisdom that anyone would give two cents (or less) about.  Its partly my upbringing – I’m English, and we just don’t go in for the self-promotional thing – and its partly my personality.

So when one of my colleagues asked to write about myself, I agreed only with considerable reluctance.  She asked me to write about several things related to my career: What do I do all day?  Why am I qualified to do what I do?  What aspects do I love most about my job?  I’ve decided to answer the last question, and let the others slide.  If you don’t love your job, then your qualifications aren’t terribly important.  So what is it that gets me out of bed in the morning?