Nathaniel T: Introduce yourself here today.

 

David Kristensen: I'm David Kristensen. I got my PhD at Baylor College of Medicine. I currently work for the National Institutes of Health at the NCBI [National Center for Biotechnology Information]. I work in a team called NCBI Virus.

 

Nathaniel T: So what does your job look like day to day?

 

David Kristensen: I'm a virus genome curator and I'm a data wrangler. So there's a lot of variety. Sometimes I'll make posters, sometimes I'll give talks, but most of the time I look after the data.

 

Nathaniel T: All right. So what STEM discipline or disciplines does your job involve?

 

David Kristensen: Science, technology, engineering, medicine, kind of all of them. Now I’m not an actual doctor doctor, I don’t have an MD [Doctor of Medicine] so I would say less medicine, but the work that we do, we curate the virus records, and so we spend a lot of time on influenza for example so it has implications for medicine, so all of them.

 

Nathaniel T: All right, so what do you enjoy most about your work?

 

David Kristensen: Oh it's fun, I mean, I can spend all day playing a video game, but why? This has so much variety. This helps people. This is a service. It really fuels my soul there. And it's fun.

 

Nathaniel T: All right. So after college and high school, what has your career path lookedlike to get to where you are now?

 

David Kristensen: College and high school. So I went directly from college to Baylor College of Medicine. I skipped the master's route that a lot of people do. I knew that I wanted a PhD, I just I knew I wanted it, so I just went straight for it. Like I say it was fun, part of it I was probably such a driven person, like I just didn't want to get distracted by anything, I didn't want to get distracted and deviate from that path. So I knew I wanted to do the PhD, so I just went for it. So once I got that, then I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. So I just kind of explored a lot of different things. I was a scientist. I was a tenure-track professor. Now I'm an engineer. So I do kind of bounce around a little bit. It's always fun. It's always interesting. It's exciting. I get to apply different types of skills to things, and yet there's a lot of commonalities between them as well.

 

Nathaniel T: So like you were talking about with the scientists, what connections, internships, or some type of work experience helped the most to get to where you are?

 

David Kristensen: I--, The jobs themselves. Each time I go somewhere, I meet people, and then those people help springboard me to the next place. So this is just my own saying, but basically the biggest predictor of future performance is past performance. So if you do well at one thing, you're likely to do well at other things. So at each place, I just do really super well, and then people are excited to recommend me to the next place.

 

Nathaniel T: So, like going back to high school, what were your career aspirations? You said you wanted to go straight to the PhD, but were you interested in specifically STEM at that point?

 

David Kristensen: Yeah, yeah. So, as always, or as many people in my generation, I grew up watching Star Trek, and I would see Data, and I would see Spock, and I'd say, oh, I want to be like that. I think there's probably more to life. Who wants to be just data? There's other aspects. There was also Captain Picard and things like that. But just that idea of exploration. And also, at the time, people were really pushing for that. There was this call. We need more scientists. We need more engineers. We need more. We've got to beat the people from other nations. We've got to do better than them. We need to. And that was the call at the time, was for more scientists, for more STEM. So I answered the call. And it, it naturally fit my personality as well  I used to do math problems for fun. I know I'm weird, but literally I'd just sit there and do algebra. Just, it was just fun for me.

 

Nathaniel T: So like over time you would say like what you wanted to do has kind of changed, like not necessarily, you were in high school and you always wanted to do math or science. It kind of fluctuated?

 

David Kristensen: So most people find math really difficult, and I don't. So, so it was an easy way for me to go forward. I think the thing with math is it's not even like an aptitude, it's more like a patience thing. You just have to have the patience to get through it. And I think a lot of people fail early, and then they think, oh, I can't do this. Studies have shown you can, you literally can, like anybody can. It’s just an amount of effort to put forth. And, when I meet challenges, I don’t like to just quit and give up, I like to keep going, so that enabled me to keep going with math. And since a lot of people don’t like it, there’s more of a need for it. So, since there was a need for it, I stepped in and filled that need.

 

Nathaniel T: Fill in the demand.

 

David Kristensen: Hmmhm.

 

Nathaniel T: All right, so in high school, did you do any like STEM-based activities, classes, or internships?

 

David Kristensen: Yes, I think all of them. So, I taught myself assembly language programming when I was in high school. We had a little calculator TI-85 and this was before the TI-92 where you could actually do assembly language. Somebody had hacked the TI-85 and so we would send strings to the machine and then there was a button you could press that would call up a place in the ROM. So, like, I started off playing games on the calculator, and then I thought, oh, maybe I could write games. And so I started writing games, and then I thought, you know, this is really hard to write the games, so I started writing utilities, like compilers and stuff. So each stage just led into it. And, you know, I keep talking about how fun it was. That was fun to write games, and even write compilers and all that. That was fun. But ultimately what I started thinking is, I could keep doing this, I could play games, I could write, you know, programs and make games, but why? If I can go and do something medically relevant, if I could go like cure a disease or help people cure a disease, help people with my skills, then I get both the fun and the fulfillment, both. So that's why I like STEM.

 

Nathaniel T: So like, you started just trying to have fun and enjoying what you do in STEM, but it turned into kind of like a, what you want to do for the future.

 

David Kristensen: Yes, I think that's one of the bigger, not necessarily just within STEM, like in all of life, it's one of the bigger pieces of advice is if you love what you do, then it's not even work. I mean, sometimes it is because every day you wake up, sometimes people have a headache and you still have to do it, but, but overall, if it's fulfilling, then you don't have to like force yourself to wake up. Imagine you could just wake up and want to do the thing. If you can make that your career path, then whatever that is, maybe it's STEM maybe it’s not, but whatever it is, if that’s your passion and it pays, you know at least a minimal amount, then do that. And that's one of the things that, as a scientist, you don't get a whole lot of compensation. I mean, it's a middle-class lifestyle, but it's not, you're not gonna make millions of dollars, usually. In STEM, you can, but I'm saying specifically, as a scientist at a government, I mean, you're looking at minimal six-figure, and especially the route to get there. PhD, you're poor. Post-doc, you're poor. So, it's not for compensation, it’s for the satisfaction and the fullfillment.

 

Nathaniel T: To know you're doing something good for the community, kind of.

 

David Kristensen: Yeah. And with my skills in database querying, Google BigQuery, as a data wrangler, I could probably go out and easily triple my salary. But that just doesn't interest me. I mean, you need enough money, but like I need other things besides money. I need that fulfillment as well.

 

Nathaniel T: So back in high school, or if you could go back to high school, would you say there's anything you would have done differently to try and get to where you are and make it easier on yourself?

 

David Kristensen: No, part of it is you can't predict the future so well. And so back then, you know, could I have predicted what's, you know, everything that's going on today? No. And I've even jumped, sort of jumped career paths, you know, going from scientist to tenure track professor. They're very much hand in hand. It's not a, it's not that big of a jump. But then to go from there and be an engineer, that was a bigger jump. Maybe the advice I could give to someone starting out would be to try a bunch of different things. Because you don't know what you love until you've tried it. And until you've tried it, you don't know whether you're going to like it or not.

 

Nathaniel T: So kind of like basing it off of that, and you said you're switching your career path. In high school, did you ever think you would be where you are today?

 

David Kristensen: Yeah. I thought I would be a scientist, I would be someone that works with data. My grandfather always wanted me to become a doctor. That's why I went to Baylor College of Medicine. He was always saying, if you could be a doctor. He worked for Buick, he worked for car companies, but he refused to teach me how to change my car's oil, how to do things with cars, like sometimes we'd even do it, but he’d say no don’t, don’t focus on this, don’t learn this, don’t become a mechanic like I did. Like, I want you to become a doctor. But what I wanted, was to work with computers. Because computers are just fascinating, so logical, and I just loved working with them. So I found a way to do both. And that's what I wanted to do, and that's what I'm doing.

 

Nathaniel T: So, in college, you went to Baylor College of Medicine, if I'm correct?

 

David Kristensen: Oh no, that was grad school. So in college, I went to University of Missouri, Kansas City.

 

Nathaniel T: And what did you study in college at that point?

 

David Kristensen: What didn't I study? My major was in biology. I had a minor in chemistry, I thought about minoring in math. I thought about minoring in several things, then I found out you can only have one minor anyway, so I did other things. So one of the things is that I went to a really good high school program, just a public high school, but still, we had IB. Do you do it?

 

Nathaniel T: Yeah, some schools have it.

 

David Kristensen: I love IB classes. 

 

Nathaniel T: Yeah, those are really good right now too.

 

David Kristensen: And we also did AP classes, which I think the IB were better actually. But then the AP actually gave college credit, so I had enough college credit I could have skipped the freshman year. I didn't because that would have disqualified my scholarship. So I had this opportunity where I could have graduated in just three years because I had all, enough credits. And I remember reading an article that basically caused me to question why. Like even if you know that you're going on to grad school, even if you know for certain, which I did, that you're going to go that route and do other things, this time in college, this is your time to explore things that you wouldn’t otherwise explore. So I knew I was going to go on and do computers and such. And so I took the time in college to do not that. And I worked with an electron, not-not, yeah, elecctron microscope. I thought maybe at Baylor College of Medicine I might do cryo-electron microscopy. I didn't. I ended up going into bioinformatics. But even as an undergrad, I did negative stain microscopy of viruses, which ultimately led to me working on viruses later on in life. So it really worked out. But that was really fun as well, to go in and use a negative state electron microscope. I mean, that's not a, that's not just a little microscope. That's a microscope that goes from floor to ceiling. That was a serious machine. And we ultimately published a paper. I mean, for my work, it was just like three paragraphs in it or something. But, yeah, it was interesting and exciting and a little different. And I got to take other classes too, psychology, human psychology, you know, things that I wouldn't do at Baylor College of Medicine while hyper-focusing on my STEM career.

 

Nathaniel T: So like you were talking about those AP and IB classes and the credit that you got. What would you say for someone that’s like, that who's considering taking one of those classes or kind of hesitant on.

 

David Kristensen: Do it. For me, you're gonna expend effort on something. Those are opportunities. I mean, those are like gold or whatever valuable thing. They come, they require a lot of work, yeah. But like, what else are you gonna spend your time doing? Watching movies, hanging out with friends. You should do that too, probably. But that's an opportunity to learn stuff. I don’t know. Even if you weren’t going to go into a career in STEM, why not? And it's free, right? To take an IB class. You just go to school. I guess I shouldn't say it's totally free, because it is a lot more of your effort. So from that standpoint, it takes more. But still, it's free and like it’s, you gain so much out of it, yeah.

 

Nathaniel T: So if someone, if a student right now is interested in something you do, like your profession, what do you think is one thing that they could do right now to enter, or even anything in STEM, something they could do right now to help themselves?

 

David Kristensen: Career-wise or just interest-wise?

 

Nathaniel T: Just interest. Something they could do in like high school or just any extracurriculars, classes, or focuses.

 

David Kristensen: Just start it. Just get into it, like I did with the calculator. I mean, I taught myself assembly language. Like, I started reading articles, and they taught me how to do it, and I was just fascinated. So pursue the passion. See what’s out there, follow that. There's so many resources out there. Just take the time to explore.

 

Nathaniel T: And if someone, like, does get into the profession and maybe graduates high school or tries to start entering the workforce, what would you say are some pieces of advice that you would give for somebody in their future, like in college or those entry-level positions?

 

David Kristensen: More career-wise, right?

 

Nathaniel T: Yeah.

 

David Kristensen: Yeah, so that's separate from the interest. So the interest, all you need to do is go find websites, just go try it. For the career-wise, I guess you need more connections. So that's where if you can join programs that will make those connections. And so you get to know the people, the people can recommend you for internships, the internships can help prove your abilities to yourself as well as them. And then that leads to future opportunities, so basically, don’t be idle, don’t be, just like if you enjoy a book, you know, pick up the book, read the book. That’s all that’s involved. But for career-wise you need to do more; you need to make those connections, and have the demonstrated series of accomplishments. So like for a scientist, it’s papers, papers are the currency of a scientist, and rightfully so. Because if you imagine scientists as like entrepr-, not even entrepreneurs, like explorers. Like if you go somewhere, if you go off to some part of the earth that has never been seen before and you document it, and you write all your notes down, and then, I don’t know, you’re sumbarine sinks or something, you went off and you did all that accomplishment, but you didn’t come back, you didn’t tell anybody about it, you didn’t bring the notes back. Did you even do it? I mean, you did for yourself, but like, it didn’t help anyone, you may have mapped and charted and all that, but you didn’t transmit that back and it was lost with you. If you don’t tell people about it, you essentially haven’t done it. So for someone in high school, their not necessarily going to be publishing papers, but like those are the kind of mantras that go into a science career. And so for even in high school you could begin on that, so you wouldn’t write a paper on your own, but like if you were to do an internship in a lab, maybe all you do is wash dishes. I mean I literally did that, one summer. I would go in and just dishes in a lab, I was supposed to be doing more, I was supposed to be growing bacteria, but it would never grow, and later learned that it was dead. But still, I spent time with scientists, and we talked, and I got to hear how they were doing their work, and I got to see how they were doing their work, and yeah I washed dishes too. Which was also helpful for them, it freed them up from doing stuff.

 

Nathaniel T: Quite interesting. That’s all I have for today. Thanks for helping out.