April 2016

Where are you from, originally?

I was born and raised in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Sue Dongarra is also from Ft. Wayne. In fact, we both grew up on the north side of town, maybe 10 miles apart, but of course not at the same time. It’s a small world after all.

Can you summarize your educational background?

I got my undergraduate degree at Purdue. I took the engineering curriculum my first two years because that was sort of the family trade—both my father and brother were chemical engineers. But unfortunately, I swerved off the designated track and went into Philosophy. My extended family found such an impractical choice incomprehensible, but made themselves feel better by occasionally chanting “Law school! Law school!” No such luck. I solidified my position as the family ne’er do well by going to graduate school in Philosophy at UNC, Chapel Hill, where I got both a Masters and (eventually) a Ph.D.

Where did you work before joining ICL?

I started at UTK in 1992 as the Director of Computing and Communications at the College of Nursing. The dean of the College, Joan Uhl Pierce, brought me with her from UNC, where she had been Associate Dean at the School of Nursing. I started my IT career at UNC around 1988. I was basically self-taught in the field, but hey, it was the late 80’s and early 90’s, the Internet was just beginning to roar, and there were lots of people who were winging it, like me. Fortunately, the Dean liked the idea of having someone with a Ph.D. doing basic sys admin stuff and desktop support. In late 1995, I went to work for Network Services as the faculty liaison. Network Services had excellent technical people, but no one who really understood academia very well or who could talk to faculty about their IT and networking needs. I came to ICL from Network Services.

How did you first hear about the lab and what made you want to work here?

I first met Jack as a result of a grant I wrote to Sun Microsystems for the campus CIO, which brought a “Sun Site” focused on Java to UTK. Java was a new thing at the time, and Jack sent an email to my boss asking about it. Jack listened to me very politely, but I was wearing a tie and I suspect I came across as an administrative dork of some variety. Fortunately, he seemed to have forgotten all about that when, about a year and a half later, he hired me as part of a package deal that also brought Micah Beck into ICL. We had written some successful NSF proposals together for Network Services, but the two of us had gotten “sideways” with the then CIO—a different one, whose head rolled shortly thereafter—and we had to flee the administrative side of the house. Micah convinced me that ICL would be an excellent place to work, and it seemed like a good time to roll the dice.

What is your primary role here at ICL? What are you working on?

ICL requires quite a bit of funding to keep going, and that means writing good proposals to government agencies that succeed at a relatively high rate. I usually describe the proposal development process as “team competitive writing.” I help to organize and manage the execution of such efforts. Developing proposals can be pretty strenuous, but because it is such a collaborative thing, and generally requires the cultivation and growth of new ideas, it can be very satisfying when things go well. Also, there’s the money.

What are your interests/hobbies outside of work?

Though I didn’t become a professional philosopher, I’ve maintained my interest in Philosophy, which you might say has become my hobby. That means, basically, that I spend much of my spare time doing a lot of reading and a little writing about things that are related, in one way or another, to my intellectual interests. I’m also an avid walker.

Tell us something about yourself that might surprise people.

When I was young I wanted to become a professional magician. I focused mostly on close up card magic, and worked pretty hard at it for several years. I impressed my bride to be with a card trick at a party, and the rest is history. Amazingly, she seems to have been far less impressed with the tricks I’ve done since we were married.

If you weren’t working at ICL, where would you like to be working and why?

To be honest, this question is more appropriate for a person in a much earlier phase in their career. At the stage I’ve reached, I’m not much inclined to think about working somewhere else. As I hinted above, I feel very fortunate to have found a place at ICL, and very privileged to have had such a tremendous group of colleagues and collaborators to work with over the years. I plan to continue to enjoy the good fortune I’ve had; contemplating alternatives seems counter productive to that plan.