I started programming in basic as a high school student in Chicago in 1976. I studied with Orville Chapman at UCLA, who developed computer-based learning systems; Frank Anet and Juli Feigon who taught me macromolecular NMR and introduced me to UNIX. In 1989 I moved to Rockefeller University where I ran MD sims of antibodies on a HUGE Evans and Sutherland system. At URI I collaborated with Prof Joan Peckham of CS to design the first bioinformatics class offered in RI.