From Biology to Sysadmin: Career Insights & Advice
Table of Contents
Interview: From Biology to Programming, Sysadmin, and Life in New Mexico
What got you interested in biology?
I was an amateur naturalist as a kid. I kept collections of all sorts and a small menagerie — much to my mother’s dismay when an anole got loose in the basement. I graduated from college with a double major in Biology and Chemistry.
Tell us about your research at Los Alamos National Labs.
I worked in C Division first as a contractor; after I received clearance I switched to different projects. We supported geodesy research and mensuration, work that later contributed to the Global Positioning System. This had little to do with biology — I was hired largely because of my experience with assembler programming for the math and hardware involved. Experience counts for a lot sometimes.
The commute to Los Alamos eventually became too much for me and several colleagues — about 65 miles (104 km) one way.
Why the switch from biology to programming and sysadmin?
During graduate school I worked in the computer center and supported many software packages and operating systems on IBM and DEC hardware. After graduate school I taught at a nursing college affiliated with a PHS hospital on the Navajo Reservation. Because I had programming skills, I was quickly pulled into writing a grant to build a computer center for the college. When the grant came through, my classroom time decreased substantially.
What advice do you have for people starting programming or Unix administration?
To be successful as a sysadmin, start with a clear direction, then develop these core skills:
- Certification (vendor or platform-focused) to validate basics
- SQL — many server setups run databases and you’ll need to query and maintain them
- Scripting in shell languages (bash, sh) and automation tooling
- Top-notch virtualization and hypervisor knowledge
Employers today often look for certification plus real experience. Server farms are enormous and many installations run database instances on multiple servers. You often have to perform the same task hundreds of times — correctly the first time and every time.
At my last workplace I was part of a small crew of PC admins for about 400 desktops and hundreds of Windows virtuals, and I handled roughly 40 UNIX/Linux servers, many virtualized into further instances. This reinforced that good sysadmin work often equates to managing the virtual infrastructure it lives on.
Note: desktop support or help-desk roles can be very different from sysadmin work. There’s no single path — pick a destination (desktop support, network admin, sysadmin, SRE, etc.) and work toward it.
Give us some insight on your time living on native reservations.
We lived on the Navajo Reservation for nine years (about 40 years ago), then on the Santo Domingo Reservation for 15 years. My daughter spoke Navajo and my son spoke Keres. One important key was accommodation: a willingness to meet outsiders more than halfway.
From my perspective, people there sometimes thought of us (Bilagaanas or “Medica”) as a little nuts, but they always tried to explain things in ways they thought we would understand. The results could be confounding. The Navajo language now appears to be in serious decline.
Translating is not trivial. A functional vocabulary in Navajo is on the order of 100,000 words, compared with a typical English-speaker’s vocabulary of roughly 10,000 words. See: https://www.quora.com/How-many-words-does-an-average-English-speaker-know
So translating can be fascinating — in the sense of the old curse: “may you live in interesting times.”
What are some of your favorite places in New Mexico?
- Bisti badlands
- Taos Gorge
- White Sands
- The peak of Mount Taylor
What research outside of the biological sciences are you most paying attention to?
Exoplanets. Period. This field is truly wonderful. I once kept a wall chart of known exoplanets; the discovery rate eventually exceeded my chart-keeping skills.
What are some important biological science advancements in the last 10 years that “no one knows about”?
Non-scientists may have a vague idea about genetics and DNA manipulation. Immunotherapy has been around for some time, but genetically tailored immunotherapy has recently shown dramatic promise. Nanjing Legend Biotech reported results on June 5, 2017, involving an experimental immunotherapeutic regimen for multiple myeloma with outstanding results. If validated, patient prognoses in that area could improve substantially.
However, there is also the problem of science reporters’ hype — too many “miracle cures” are hyped and then never follow through. That kind of reporting is a major problem, in my opinion.
Give us some predictions for the next 100 years of biology breakthroughs.
I expect the integration of human neural input/output with embedded nanotechnology to come to the forefront. There are already very small “smart” hearing aids that improve hearing far beyond older, much larger models. I anticipate many kinds of smaller, neurally integrated devices becoming commonplace, much as cell phones did.
Lastly, what are some of your all-time favorite books, movies, and musicians?
- Books: Guns, Germs, and Steel (Jared Diamond); The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester)
- Composers: Arvo Pärt; Maurice Jarre; Philip Glass
- Favorite movie: Star Wars
I have a BS in Information Sciences from UW-Milwaukee. I’ve helped manage Physics Forums for over 22 years. I enjoy learning and discussing new scientific developments. STEM communication and policy are big interests as well. Currently a Sr. SEO Specialist at Shopify and writer at importsem.com
Guns, Germs, and Steel is one of my most favorite also. I share your enthusiasm.
Fixed…Much better…. :thumbup:
This interview has some really wretched line breaks. I believe the technology underlying PhysicsForums requires that you not include carriage returns within a paragraph, if you want to prevent that.Fixed, thanks!
Lastly, what are some of your all time favorite books, movies, musicians etc.? This one is easy – ‘Guns, Germs, and Steel’ by Jared Diamond, ‘The Stars My Destination’ by Alfred Bester.'Guns, Germs, and Steel' is an excellent book and I have a copy of it.
While I really enjoyed all the "sciency" stuff in the book, my favorite passage was where Jarad Diamond was explaining that the Aztecs had never seen horses (or any other large land animal) before and must have been absolutely terrified when men mounted on these huge beasts charged them during their fights with the spaniards. I don't know why, but it really stuck with me. I guess because it made me think of something I'd never thought about before. I mean, who nowadays hasn't seen a horse before? Even if only in pictures. I'd be terrified if someone on a horse charged me too, but at least I already know what a horse is!
This interview has some really wretched line breaks. I believe the technology underlying PhysicsForums requires that you not include carriage returns within a paragraph, if you want to prevent that.
Thanks for participating Jim!
Well, Spanish (and English) is an official language for all transactions in New Mexico. The state constitution dictates this.
So, the English-only movement, like you see in Arizona, doesn't get much traction here. How social media and TV/radio will affect this in years to come, I do not know.
But the status quo is codified, so to speak. Language is inherently dynamic, so changes will occur, regardless of the state laws.
[opinion]
See: http://www.roughrock.k12.az.us/Welcome.htm
This does work rather well. However, there are few jobs on the reservation. Many young people leave, often because of non-Navajo spouses, and the kids never learn Navajo. They are on the tribal roles, but they are not active members. Plus, a Navajo who is not fluent in English has limited job prospects off the Rez. RR Demonstration recognizes that challenge pretty well. It is one school. There are many others: BIA, or Apache, Navajo, or Coconino county schools. Results are not heartening, IMO.
So, yes, people are trying. Are they all succeeding? IMO, probably not.
[/opinion]If that is the case, in your opinion, are there any prospects for the survival of minority languages (Native American languages in particular) in the United States? Or will all minority languages (beyond those spoken by recent immigrants) die out and everyone in the US will become monolingual in English only?
[opinion]
See: http://www.roughrock.k12.az.us/Welcome.htm
This does work rather well. However, there are few jobs on the reservation. Many young people leave, often because of non-Navajo spouses, and the kids never learn Navajo. They are on the tribal roles, but they are not active members. Plus, a Navajo who is not fluent in English has limited job prospects off the Rez. RR Demonstration recognizes that challenge pretty well. It is one school. There are many others: BIA, or Apache, Navajo, or Coconino county schools. Results are not heartening, IMO.
So, yes, people are trying. Are they all succeeding? IMO, probably not.
[/opinion]
Hi @jim mcnamara ! I saw your interview with Greg on Insights. I was curious about your experience on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico. You state that the Navajo language is in serious decline now, but I've read elsewhere that there are major revitalization efforts to try to preserve and grow the language in the Reservation.
Given your knowledge, do you have any idea of how successful the efforts are? And doyou personally feel that the Navajo language will survive as a viable language of the community?
(To moderators: I realize that my post has nothing to do with biology or medicine, but it is a follow-up to his experiences living on a native reservation.)
Maybe if he wrote it like "It was about (65 miles, 104 Km)?" Then it would kind of be like the distributive rule applied to approximation?My point is that nobody talking in km would say "about 104 km."
"Give us some predictions for the next 100 years of biology science breakthroughs.
I think the integration of human neural input/output with embedded nanotechnology will come to the forefront. There are now “smart” very small hearing aids that improve hearing greatly over past much larger models. I expect many kinds of smaller neurally integrated devices to become de rigueur, much in the way cell phone technology has done."
I'd suggest checking out the latest issue of IEEE spectrum. It's a special issue on the brain and AI and discusses the latest progress on these topics. The department/lab I'm in at my university just got a hardcopy recently and I stole it today :-p. I think you can access part or all of the content online, though:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/magazine
I don't know if I should blame you or @Greg Bernhardt, but the interview includes one of my pet peeves: the precise conversion of an approximate value:Maybe if he wrote it like "It was about (65 miles, 104 Km)?" Then it would kind of be like the distributive rule applied to approximation?
And I agree – imprecise conversions aren't necessarily valid or helpful.
What would you suggest? ~65 miles (~104km)? Since you cannot know, part of the commute was over unimproved dirt roads. Sections were sometimes impassable requiring making the distance quite variable. Sometimes in Winter, only the "long way" through Santa Fe was open, exactly 86.4 miles of paved roads.I would have rounded it the same way as if it would have been originally in km: "it was about 100 km one way."
What would you suggest? ~65 miles (~104km)?65.0 miles (103km). :smile:
Great interview — thanks Jim!
And I agree – imprecise conversions aren't necessarily valid or helpful.
What would you suggest? ~65 miles (~104km)? Since you cannot know, part of the commute was over unimproved dirt roads. Sections were sometimes impassable requiring making the distance quite variable. Sometimes in Winter, only the "long way" through Santa Fe was open, exactly 86.4 miles of paved roads.
FWIW – the commute went from Santo Domingo, up over the Dome road to La Cueva NM. This is pointless detail, except that it is my experience sometimes it is difficult for non-locals to perceive how very undeveloped vast areas of New Mexico are. After the May 2000 Cerro Grande forest fire (that destroyed part of Los Alamos), the dome road was closed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_Grande_Fire
FWIW: New Mexico is notoriously hard to deal with for a lot of people. Lew Wallace (author of Ben Hur, and territorial governor of NM) quote:
All calculations based on our experiences elsewhere fail in New Mexico.
This is in large part quite true. Example see above – a simple commute? No. :smile:
Nice @jim mcnamara!
I don't know if I should blame you or @Greg Bernhardt, but the interview includes one of my pet peeves: the precise conversion of an approximate value:
It was about 65 miles (104km) one-way.