Remembering a Supportive Sibling
Less than a week before I was scheduled to deliver my first presentation on a novel way for approaching an outstanding challenge in seismic processing, my younger sister Deborah passed away. She was only 50. Thanks to medical care that included extensive chemotherapy, Debbie recovered from lymphoma once, and was declared cancer free. However, a second wave of lymphoma accompanied by leukemia, proved to be more than she could handle – and we lost her during a procedure that (ironically) was attempting to provide more information about the cancers that had literally taken over her body.
Between Debbie’s passing and her funeral, was not only a about a week’s lapse of time, but the need for me to make a decision – a decision to present as scheduled at the 2015 Rice University Oil & Gas Conference in Houston or miss the event entirely. A complicating factor in my ability to make this decision was that I truly was the only person who could deliver it. That’s more a pragmatic statement than a boastful one, as I had combined my background in geophysics with an increasing knowledge of Big Data Analytics; in so doing, I’d arrived at a submission for the RiceU Conference that was as uniquely of my creation as it was a disruptive suggestion – in other words, something I felt strongly to be well suited to the Conference’s Disruptive Technology Track. With the Conference being less than a week away, most of the real work had already been completed; in other words, all I needed to do was show up, make a two-minute presentation, and discuss the poster I’d prepared with those who expressed an interest.
Debbie was always highly supportive and encouraging when it came to ‘things’ like this – the expression of something worth sharing. This, despite the fact that she and I were on completely different trajectories when it came to our intellectual interests and pursuits – me in the physical sciences and technology, while Debbie favoured English literature. Despite these differences, Debbie often made a point of trying to understand and appreciate what I was working on – no matter how geekily obscure.
In recalling these traits of hers, her sincere interest in what I was doing (I suppose) just because we were siblings, my decision to follow through with the presentation at the RiceU Conference was a relatively easy one. Executing it, however, was at times challenging … and I could not have followed through without the support of my colleagues from Bright Computing.
You can still review my two-minute presentation here thanks to the wonderful people who run this industry-leading event on an annual basis at Rice. The poster I alluded to is available here. The ideas hatched through these 2015 communications proved instrumental in spinning off additional contributions. Equally important, were those interactions initiated at this 2015 RiceU Conference. Some of these interactions resulted in relationships that persist through today – relationships that have, for example, resulted me applying Machine Learning to problems of scientific interest.
And so it is, on the occasion of what would’ve been Debbie’s 54th birthday, that I wistfully remember my sister. Without knowing that I’d have had her support and encouragement, I likely wouldn’t have followed through with that March 2015 presentation at the RiceU Conference – a decision that had immediate plus long-lasting implications to my progression as a Data Scientist.
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