A few bumps on re-entry

Anyone who knows me knows I hate flying. So, they probably think a lead-in like that means this just ain't going to be a pleasant post. At the same time, I am locally famous for my excited "rants" so perhaps it was enough to get you to tune in!

Actually I thought it time to post something as it had been a while, and a lot has been going on. Most notably, after surviving a year of administrivia as the Associate Chair for Computing in the Department of Engineering, I was granted a yearlong sabbatical to work in the Bioengineering initiative of the Sheik Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at the Children's National Medical Center in Washington D.C. (yes, quite a mouthful - their biz cards are a roll of toilet paper!).


Turn off all portable devices until we reach cruising altitude...

The academic sabbatical is another one of those concepts that everyone seems to understand but few define the same way. Everyone understands they want one, but the purpose and conditions for granting one vary person-to-person, and institution-by-institution. I hear stories of folks who go on sabbatical and do absolutely nothing (other than visit family or build a garage), others who go on extended job interviews, others who get it as some sort of reward for performing an unsavory task (hmm, like being Associate Chair?), and then those who actually have a lot of work to do on their research program. Fortunately most folks fall into the last category (I think I am split between the last 2 actually).

Going on a yearlong sabbatical cross-country with a family of 5 (6 if you include the dog) is a daunting task. We had to relocate, the wife had to home-school, and I had to get used to a 75-minute car-subway-shuttle commute twice a day. Fortunately it all worked out - we rented a nice townhouse in Northern Virginia, rented out our own house, the kids returned to school further ahead than their peers (a credit to my wife), and I actually enjoyed commuting through our nation's capital. Everyday I came up out of the Metro in Union Station, looked to the left at the Capitol, and got on the shuttle bus. I liked the hustle and bustle of an east coast city. Being able to show the kids historic places in D.C. and all along the east coast was just a phenomenal experience you cannot get in Arizona. But yeah, rain and winter still suck... 

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight... 

From a career perspective it was quite humbling. But I learned that unless you are willing to humble yourself, tear down the structures of pride we build over the years, and be willing to go back to square one, then you cannot be truly successful. One look at my CV would show anyone I took an unusual route in terms of experience (grad school - industry - grad school - tenure-track - industry - tenure-track), location (back and forth between D.C. and Arizona 7 times now) and scholarly areas (automated software process, software architecture, image-guided surgery, software engineering education, agile methods, open source, yada yada yada); I am the academic equivalent of a kid with ADD. But I enjoy it, and to do it you have to be willing to jump in on new areas without fear, and with humility. In other words, I had no idea what I was doing the first day I walked into the hospital.

What fun though! Some things I expected - clinicians are extremely dedicated, hard-working, and intelligent people; I was challenged everyday! Some things I didn't - despite the dollars associated with research and development in healthcare, I found the deployed technology to be decidedly antiquated. The poor IT infrastructure, the lack of any systematic approach I could find to integration in the surgical theater, and the ad hoc way of communicating and validating requirements were all shocking to me. A caveat; I say deployed technology, there were many mind-blowing research seminars in-house I attended, conferences and workshops to go to with engaged researchers, and the extremely talented research staff in the bioengineering lab to interact with on a daily basis; the research is there, but the path to technology transfer is a high-risk landmine.

Looks like I picked the wrong time to stop sniffing glue... 

I've definitely sniffed (and inhaled) the smoke of open source and agile development. I've worked in open source in both industry and academia, and am amazed at its ability to spawn practical innovation at a rapid pace. Likewise agile methods spawn innovation with an accountability-driven, people-first model. However, due to the inclusive amorphous definition of both practices, each faces challenges by bandwagon-jumpers. A number of vendors now offer "partial open source" solutions to generate opportunities; everyone has their guess on the best open source business model I suppose. My real issue with these offerings is the lack of true egalitarian community formation; they instead try to create a community of dependence to which they can upsell. It is like Boomer Esiason's famous quote about working with Al Michaels on Monday Night Football: "Al's a team player, but its Al's team." Agile methods also suffers penalties from its inclusiveness. While there are "Manifestos" and books on agile "best practices", agile remains a process model without rigid boundaries and therefore it is hard to identify. Many folks claiming to do Agile select from the best practices ala carte, or even worse have no process at all and claim it is agile.

Why is this relevant to my sabbatical? Because I am interested in the impacts of open source and agile methods on software architectures for safety-critical software. As both open source and agile methods have amorphous boundaries, I am interested, from a research perspective, one how much (or how little) of each practice is needed to efficiently create safety-critical software. I am also interested in how communities form around areas like safety-critical software for surgery, versus other safety-critical areas (like say, missile systems). I spent some time on this over sabbatical, and wrote a few recent publications, though these are just the tip of the iceberg and I hope to delve into them more systematically in the next few years.

Hurry up and use the potty, because we are starting our initial descent...

And then just when you are getting into a rhythm, the sabbatical ends. A year (really 15 months) seemed like a very long time when I was starting, but boy it sure seemed over in a hurry. I have no idea how one does something productive in a one-semester sabbatical. It reminded me that not only is humility required, but stamina and persistence as well. Many friends and acquaintances over the years had no idea I had a Ph.D. or was a professor, and would have this "oh you must be really smart" reaction - but I always tell them what I learned long ago as a graduate student: earning a Ph.D., or performing any significant research, requires stamina and persistence, and only a small amount of intellect.  

Thank you for flying sabbatical air, wherever your career may take you, we hope you choose us!

I sure will, I sure will...

All, in all, there was some unexpected turbulence, but it was an outstanding experience. Perhaps the most difficult thing has been returning - there have definitely been a few bumps on re-entry, as my title suggests. Just as you feel like you are gaining ground on an exciting research direction, you are slammed with classes and service and students and...life. But all the more reason to remind myself that the research is a marathon not a sprint, and I endeavor to find a rhythm within the constraints of my other obligations, as I enjoy those pursuits as well. As part of establishing this new rhythm, I hope to spend more time posting to this blog, and I promise fewer of them will be essays on my personal career journey!