章鱼花园 Vol. 56: Matt Might 教授的经历
最近读到一篇 Matt Might 教授的 Blog: HOWTO: Get tenure tenure 是大学终身教授的意思,是所有 AP (Assistant Professor 助理教授)的梦想,拿到 AP 也就是类似于铁饭碗。这篇文章非常长,信息量也非常大,读完非常有感触。简单做个分享:
写这篇如何获得终身教授的起因是有一天有人在 Quora 上的一个问题:如何减少自己生下残疾孩子的机率。提问者说自己现在才 16 岁,但是想得比较远,担心自己没有时间、精力和足够的爱心去照顾一个残疾小孩。因为自己还想在计算机或者医学领域做出一点成就。
Dr. Might 看到以后用自己的话形容「This question burrowed deep into my consciousness, a parasite sapping my ability to think about anything else.」如坐针毡,有了强烈的动机想要分享自己的经历。这段经历之前写在了他的另外一篇博客上: Hunting down my son's killer,这篇文章甚至被翻译成了很多语言,中文翻译:寻找我儿子的生命杀手,建议详细阅读。
长话短说,Might 教授的儿子 Bertrand 在出生 8 个月后大脑停止了生长,并出现运动障碍,并且一度可以哭泣但是没有眼泪。那时候 Might 教授是 Utah 大学的 AP 还没有拿到 tenure。于是一场漫长的针对他儿子救赎的科研探索 (odyssey)也随之开始了。在找了非常都的专科医生,排除了一堆已知罕见病之后,仍然不知道 Bertrand 得了什么病。得益于 Might 教授的在学术界(本身是计算机领域),他开始和 Utah 大学, Duke 大学的基因教授,甚至是 NIH 政府机构合作。经过漫长的探索,基本上是拿着他的儿子做各种实验,最后通过基因测序,终于找到了他儿子的病因。这也是已知发现的第一例 NGLY1 基因突变缺陷症(人群机率 400百万分之一,现在经过他的搜集和联系,已知的有 15 例)。他孩子的故事也登上了 New Yorker 杂志 One of a Kind.
这还没有完,Might 为了研究自己孩子的病因,也从计算机领域深度跨界到医药领域,基因工程。并且是白宫 Precision Medicine Initiative (精确医药) 的主要参与者。他自己回想起刚开始 AP 的时候,为了想要拿到项目经费,发文章也经常会灌水 (thin-slicing). "I was so desperate to publish and raise funds that I began thin-slicing my research and submitting lots of poor quality papers and grant proposals." 可是当他带着自己的对 Bertrand 的爱和自己的学术知识 ,来解决一个看似是自己家庭的事情(希望找到自己孩子疾病的原因并且希望治愈他)时,一切都在发生着变化。I’ve published 45 papers. I picked up three DARPA projects, four NSF projects and two DoE projects aimed at everything from next-generation cybersecurity to cancer-fighting medical robotics to exascale scientific computing. 而且顺理成章得拿到了 tenure。
感触最深的是他这样的两段话,我摘录下来:
Life is too precious and too fleeting to waste my time on bullshit like tenure. I didn’t become a professor to get tenure. I became a professor to make the world better through science. From this day forward, I will spend my time on problems and solutions that will matter. I will make a difference.
I am grateful to my “disabled child” for teaching me one of life’s most valuable lessons: the importance of using our hauntingly brief time on this planet to do the things that matter, the things that will make a difference – the things that are inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
Focus on the things that will make a difference – the things that are inspired by love and guided by knowledge. 把自己的精力注重那些有影响,带来改变的事情 ── 那些由爱而生,并需要你的知识来解决的事情上。
It does.
Sense
FDW FDW: Foreign Data Wrappers是 PG 实现的统一以 SQL 方式管理外部数据的一个包装。 In 2003, a new specification called SQL/MED ("SQL Management of External Data") was added to the SQL standard. It is a standardized way of handling access to remote objects from SQL databases. #DB
Sensibility
Scientific thinking vs wishful thinking in product design #Products When you get the evidence and face it, now it is time to change people’s behavior. That’s the innovation part. 所谓一厢情愿(wishful thinking)就是基于美好的想象而不是基于理性思考和客观证据而形成的想法和信念。或者说是拿着锤子找钉子。
gut punch: 直击心灵。The word guts is an interesting word in English; it has several meanings, one of which is 「an innermost emotional response」. So a punch (or kick) in the guts is something that affects you strongly in an emotional sense.英文里面有句成语 kick in the guts a severe blow to one's body or spirit. 比如用最近的飞机失事让观众受到很大的心灵打击: The news was a kick in the guts, and I haven’t recovered yet. #English
引用链接
[1]
Matt Might 教授: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/pmi/matt-might[2]
HOWTO: Get tenure: https://matt.might.net/articles/tenure/[3]
Hunting down my son's killer: https://matt.might.net/articles/my-sons-killer/[4]
寻找我儿子的生命杀手: https://matt.might.net/articles/my-sons-killer/translation/chinese/[5]
One of a Kind: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/07/21/one-of-a-kind-2[6]
FDW: https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Foreign_data_wrappers[7]
SQL/MED: https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/SQL/MED[8]
Scientific thinking vs wishful thinking in product design: https://uxdesign.cc/scientific-thinking-vs-wishful-thinking-in-product-design-9ee33691b6c8[9]
kick in the guts: https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/kick+in+the+guts