I am a grad student in bioinformatics at George Mason U., preparing myself for yet another career. I began my working life as a professional musician. Subsequently I received a PhD in theoretical physics from UC San Diego. After post-docs in oceanography/geophysics at Scripps and Woods Hole and in EE at MIT, I went into the national security field. I spent several years doing operations research for the US Navy, and ended that phase of my life as Director of Naval OR for NATO in Italy. Next, I returned to hard science and engineering and spent 15 years building acoustic measurement ranges and developing advanced technology for submarines. I turned to biological sciences after returning to grad school in 1997. While in grad school, I support myself through computational finance consulting for a Wall Street hedge fund. My immediate research interests focus on metabolomics, the third leg of the post-genomic world of systems biology. I am developing algorithms and software for high throughput screening of small metabolites in biological tissue, using HPLC. In the longer term, I am interested in methods for merging data from gene expression, protein expression, and metabolic profiling to develop a global understanding of genetic and biochemical regulation, with emphasis on the mammalian nervous system.