Career Conversations: Q & A with Biological Engineer Brian Munsky

Dr. Brian Munsky. Credit: Colorado State University. “I think having a career in science is really the best way to rechannel the inner child, to remain forever curious about the world,” says Brian Munsky, Ph.D., an associate professor of chemical and biological engineering at Colorado State University, Fort Collins. Check out the highlights of our interview with Dr. Munsky below to learn how his childhood practical jokes led to him running a research group that uses computational and experimental methods to study complex processes inside cells. Q: How did you become interested in science and math? A: I really enjoyed math problems from the time I was very little. Then in 1986, my parents brought home one of those really early computers, an Apple 2C, and I’d take little bits of code from the computer games they’d bought and create my own video games out of them. I also liked to play practical jokes on people. When I was in 7th grade, I reprogrammed all the computers in a classroom so that a few minutes into the next class period, when I was nowhere around, they all started playing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The school never caught me for that, although I suspect they knew who was responsible. Q: What was your path to becoming a scientist? A: I started college at Pennsylvania State University as an English major because my heroes were primarily science fiction writers. But I was still very interested in mathematics and physics, so I took a statics ...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Being a Scientist Bioinformatics Computational Biology Profiles Source Type: blogs