Joanne Luciano
Short Bio
I live in Belmont, MA (near Cambridge). I wear too many hats - too many interests. Dan, among others will recall this was a problem then. I wonder if there's a name for this disorder. I've envied Sybil - 16 separate personalities/lives! It seems that would be easier to maintain than having them all into one person.Decided to self-employ in 1982, got married, then incorporated. It was meant to be more but stayed a consulting business. Dissolved it in 1988 when we divorced because I wanted to go to medical school. (Smart guy - didn't want to be married to a med or grad student, now I know why!) I had gotten interested in medicine and then found out about Parallel Distributed Processing and neural networks. It was very exciting, my excuse to study how the brain functions. How things work fascinate me. So, off I went -unhappy I had to leave my marriage to pursue my intellectual interests, but so it went. A friendship with Bob and his family survives the marriage. Didn't go to medical school; went for a PhD. Grad school was "life in hell," made worse because I expected it to be fun. What did I know? It sucked, but I persevered; PhD in 1996. Some day I hope I can respond "Yes" to "Was it worth it?" without a questioning-hesitation from deep within.
In grad school I pioneered work applying mathematical modeling to clinical research in mental health. Harvard Medical School, Mass General Hosp, The Institute of Cybermedicine and 2 patents from my doctoral all are part of my continued work to apply advances in information technology, analytical techniques, and biotechnology to better evaluate the effectiveness of antidepressant treatments and to make better, more personalized treatment selection. This part of health care is in the dark ages; treatment depends on the practitioner's training (therapist, specialist, primary care physician) rather than the specifics of the patient's condition. Product development and its integration into medical practice is a long process; I do this 1-2 days/week
The other days I work in bio tech (mostly consulting, but) I just joined Molecular Mining Corporation (Kingston, Ontario) as Director of Business Development and Integration. MMC is opening an office in Boston this month. Great people, exciting work. I'm happy.
On the personal side...
Been a rough winter, but a miracle occurred. My mom (82) has been living with me since Nov 2000. She was pretty sick, but she's doing great now. In January, Gamma Knife radio surgery (one-day out-patient treatment with focused gamma rays from 201 cobalt-60 pellets) made am 8mm tumor in her brain (cerebellum) DISAPPEAR in 6 weeks). GONE. A miracle. She would have been symptomatic in a few months. Her other tumors (in lung and liver) have shrunk - they don't know, but they think it causes an auto-immune response.
I hike, bike, rock-climb, scuba dive, fly, jog, laugh (at my self as much as possible). I'm single and have wanted to remarry for some time. At the moment I've taken the summer off from thinking about it, but if you know someone......
Next....
Stories and Anecdotes
Reading Wai's bio reminds me of how I got to Wang. It was Renel. I needed to take a leave of absence from school. It was getting to be too much. At the time I couldn't even imagine interviewing for a corporate job because it was my dream to get a PhD in math and become a math professor. (Instead I'm going out with one). But Renel and I were good friends and she liked Wang a lot. She brought my resume in and I don't remember if I interviewed with anyone outside of Dan's group and I know I didn't interview outside of Department 14.I'm responsible for the introduction of Ron Rothenberg to Wang. I also brought in for an interview a guy named Les Mosley. He didn't wind up at Wang but went instead to work with Paul at Waters Business Systems. He's still a close friend too.
One day I complained to Ron that while it it was OK to use my CRT, I'd appreciate if he washed his hands after eating or clean my keyboard. I didn't like that he left my keyboard greasy. The next day I found a glob of peanut butter smack in the middle of the screen.
I think a group effort created the concept of our "I'm very busy working" keyboard click program. I seem to think it was Ron who bothered to code it up. The program generated, at random intervals, the keyboard software "click" sound. This was very useful to have running when you wanted everyone to think you were busy at work typing away, when in fact you were picking your nose, snoozing, or out of the office. Another side benefit of having workstations in each office. It was very effective.
What ever happened to John Patino-Bueno? He came up to me after one of Harold's pool parties and apologized for kissing me on Harold's couch because I had come with a date. I hate when that happens. I had no recollection. He became very embarrassed. I wonder if it had anything to do with the EtOH?