As a new graduate student in 2001 I was awarded an NSF IGERT fellowship in computational phylogenetics. Computational biology was a complete unknown to me at the time, but I took the chance and participated in the broader graduate program to cross-train biologists and computer scientists in the opposite fields. After completing a very challenging undergraduate "intro to computer science" class I was hooked. For me, troubleshooting a computer program I was writing was much more interesting than troubleshooting in the wet lab.
As a graduate student I took two undergraduate-level computer science classes (Java and C). This gave me enough foundation to teach myself the rest - I have used Perl extensively over the past 10 years and am now transitioning to Python.
Although I started out as a plant biologist, I now work on the evolution of foodborne pathogens (Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria etc.). The FDA is sequencing the whole genomes of these pathogens as they arise in routine surveillance, environmental sampling, and farm/facility testing. I address the following questions in my research:
As genome science becomes more prevalent in the regulatory environment –– FDA, CDC, DOD, DOE, etc. –– the government will continue to expand their hiring of PhD computational biologists. Our group will be hiring several people over the next year or two (bioinformatics support, postdocs and full-time positions). If you are interested in a government scientist position feel free to reach out to me anytime with questions. Government positions are posted on https://www.usajobs.gov.