I was born in Cork, Ireland, and have lived most of my life there. In school, my best subjects were English and history, but somehow I became a scientist. I didn’t take study that seriously until college, spending most of my school years focused on rugby, hanging out, and questionable art projects.
In college, I studied food science. Part of the degree was a six months internship in Aberdeen, Scotland, where I worked in research and development. I liked corporate R&D, but looked forward to doing more in-depth research when I got back to the university. In my final year, I did a research project that later got published, a process I enjoyed so much that doing a PhD seemed like a reasonable next step.
I started the PhD right after graduation and it was a great experience. In particular, I liked writing articles and trying to find new ideas, even when it seemed like everything had already been done before. I started teaching around that time, and I liked it more than I had expected. I also won a Fulbright scholarship that meant I could live in the US for a year doing research at UW-Madison, Wisconsin. Madison remains one of my favourite places to visit.
After my PhD, I got an academic position almost right away. For just under eight years, I did a lot of teaching, published many papers, and won some grant money. I also completed a degree in philosophy, initially to prepare me to teach ethics and epistemology to science students. A side effect of studying philosophy was that I became interested in software, because I loved the logic and AI classes.
My expanding interests made me begin to question whether I could remain as a specialist in food science. To learn more about software, and improve my chances of getting a job in that area, I started yet another degree, this time in computer science. Soon after, I applied for a job at Canonical and they hired me.
Today, I work as a technical author in the software industry. I’ve added computer science to my eclectic set of college degrees. I occasionally collaborate on articles with old academic colleagues. In my spare time, I try to read widely, write essays and stories, make electronic music, and mess around with every piece of software I can get my hands on.