Paul Shannon spent his twenties as a carpenter, eventually returning to college to prepare for a second career as a scientific programmer. He subsequently worked in a variety of disciplines: atmospheric chemistry, psychoacoustics, mechanical engineering, radio astronomy, then realized his long-held aspiration to work in biology and medicine by joining the ISB in 2001. He recently spent 4 years at the Fred Hutch in the Bioconductor and the Solid Tumor Translational Research projects, and is delighted to now be back at the ISB.