Since I am one of those systems people, I heartily agree with everyone on the
merits of having one! :-) Having come out of corporate research as a systems
person there, I jumped at the chance to come to a university department and
run a facility of neat computers for biological analysis. As for funding, I
also manage the MicroVAX system for the departmental administration, and thus
I could come on as a full-time departmental staff member instead of being
tied to a specific research grant. The departmemt administrative support only
takes up maybe 20% of my time (plus we have, or at least had, a second computer
person to help support "the office" -- you can look for my May job posting in
misc.jobs.offered !) As for biological background, I was lucky enough to come
out of a corporate biological research background although my undergrad and grad
work was all in computers. I actually think it is better to find a system person
and having them learn the biology part as compared to the other way around..
=====================================================================
Hugh Chou chou at wustlb.wustl.edu
Systems Manager CHOU at WUSTLB (Bitnet)
Biology Computing Facility hugh at wugate.wustl.edu
Washington University chou at biodec.wustl.edu
One Brookings Drive
Campus Box 1137
St. Louis MO 63130
