
Tell us about your work.
I am the Dry Lab Manager at the Advanced Genomics Core (AGC), a unit of the Biomedical Research Core Facilities (BRCF). We make complex technologies, instruments, and services available to the U-M community that facilitate research in cutting-edge fields of genomics, single cell, and spatialomics. I can’t believe I have this job. Just to be associated with the AGC is amazing.
I’m a computer science graduate at U-M, and I was happy to return where I started. We’re doing something at the AGC that, when I graduated from college in 1989, was unheard of. Sequencing DNA was not a thing at that time. Now, I help researchers do that and more every single day, and that’s incredible.
Genomics is a big data game. It’s all about stats and probability. With all that number crunching, we rely on the Bioinformatics Core to assist researchers in identifying and interpreting patterns in their biological data. The AGC also works closely with the Transgenic Animal Model Core, Epigenomics Core, and Flow Cytometry Core. And we can’t forget our friends at ITS Advanced Research Computing (ARC) and Health Information Technology & Services (HITS), who help us keep many terabytes of data flowing between our sequencers and our customers every week (so far this year, we have delivered over 725 Terabytes of data!).
What is your leadership style?
I have a team of six, and I consider myself an extension of my team. I’m their lead blocker if you want to think of it in football terms. Every day, we have stand-up meetings (some may call it a touch-base). Each person shares what they did yesterday that impacted the team, what they will do today, and what they need help with. This has been especially valuable in leading a hybrid team. Most of my focus as a manager is on where my team needs help. That could be anything from contacting another unit to jointly problem solve, to contacting Facilities for instrument power needs, to writing code to interpret sequencer output files. I try to make sure the people I supervise can do all of the amazing things, and I’ll do everything else.
My philosophy is to first make things work, then make things pretty (usable/maintainable), and lastly, if you absolutely have to, make it fast. This is an iterative development style, and it keeps us focused on what’s important – a functioning system that actually helps someone do their job.
I encourage everyone to lead at any level, any title. Take the opportunities where you can, such as small or large task work, and you’ll likely end up in a leadership position. Do the job you want, and it’ll get you there.
How does the AGC contribute to the success of the university’s research mission?
I should start with what a core facility is. It’s a group of people and/or equipment that are shared throughout U-M and sometimes outside of U-M. At the AGC, we concentrate on both equipment and expertise in traditional next-generation, single-cell, and spatial analyses. As a shared resource, we can really focus on being experts with the technology so researchers can do what they do best.
In terms of impact, one presentation comes to mind. In 2019, The Levi Lab (now at UT) was trying to understand phantom limb pain. Studies using resources housed within the AGC helped them gain a greater understanding of the phenomenon, which then helped them change clinical treatment for catastrophic limb loss. Hearing the impact of this research made me cry. It drove home that we’re changing lives by changing how people get treated. In another example, a lab I worked with today is working to understand how RNA can indicate good or bad sleep in a fruit fly. This may help us understand sleep better. We aren’t a clinical unit; we are just researching. I do what I can to help make the instruments run better and yield better, more impactful research.
What are some jobs you held in the past that helped you get to where you are today?
I started as a FORTRAN programmer at Dow, Inc. I was there for eight years. Then, I moved into consulting for Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). I did this for ten years. I found this work to be a good training ground for aspects of my current leadership role. In this job, I was able to hone my style and found that being true to myself was the best way to go. It’s been an overarching theme in my career. I’m a no-nonsense person in and out of work. After the consulting job, I worked for ten years developing LaserJet firmware for HP as a remote worker. I realized when I came back to the university in 2017 that I could achieve satisfaction in my soul by trying to make people’s lives better. Convincing someone that you have the best toner is one thing; improving the treatment of injured veterans is on a completely different level. I started at U-M as a programmer at the DNA Sequencing Core in September 2017 and became a manager in 2019.
What is your favorite piece of IT in the AGC?
The NovaSeq X Plus from Illumina. We can generate 1.5 TB of data every day, and we can sequence 15 trillion base pairs every day. With this equipment, we can sequence 128 people’s entire genome every two days. The first human genome took ten years and $13M. Now, we can do over one hundred of them every other day for under $500 per person. The sequencer uses the same kind of imaging technology that is used to look at the stars. Instead of looking up, we look down.
What do you do for fun?
I’m a musician – I play the trumpet. We rehearse three times a week. It’s fun, and it reminds me of my time with the Michigan Marching Band (MMB). I got to go to the Rose Bowl twice, I witnessed a basketball national championship in 1989, and the MMB is where I met my wife, Diana (she plays the clarinet). Together, we are part of the U-M Alumni Pep Band, and we cover for the student band for softball, hockey, and basketball and occasionally for swimming, diving, and water polo.
I enjoy woodworking with hand tools and am currently building a table out of reclaimed cherry from a farm just north of NCRC. I like the break from technology and screens that I get from woodworking. I also like that what I make isn’t perfect. Imperfections are what makes us human, and that’s what makes us (and whatever I make) beautiful.