Meeting industry research leaders

While I was away at the The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in San Diego, I received the opportunity to meet Gabby, our CA Lab head. I wasn’t too sure what to expect from this legendary research figure having never officially googled him. But from what I have heard of him from Tim, I expected a very brilliant man. Having become acquainted with our more local leader, Eugene, I somewhat expected a similar personality. Eugene’s presence demands military respect of the Russian variety with underlying tones of top secret weapon knowledge. Then he speaks and he somehow seems cuddly.

In relation to Eugene, Gabby is similar in that they are both of comparable height. This is where all physical resemblances end. After searching for Gabby with no luck for the first three quarters of the conference day one, I finally cornered him during Connie and Carrie’s presentation where Gabby was listening attentively in the front row. He was the only male in the room so I made a stab in the dark and guessed this was Gabby. It was pretty exciting, I was sitting in the same room as Gabby and I could see the back of his head.

After the presentation, I waited around to speak to the man himself and to Connie and Carrie as well. There were times when I just did not know what to say to Gabby but it was a nice experience to finally meet him. If you asked me what we had talked about, I would not be able to tell you. I was concentrating so hard that I don’t know what happened. We spoke for a total of three times throughout various times during the conference: once at the CA presentation session, once at dinner and once at the CA booth.

The CA member I became most familiar with while at the conference was Connie. I had given the opportunity to sit next to this pretty and intelligent individual after I was invited to eat at the CA table for the presentation dinner. My most memorable moment of Connie was when asked if she was vegetarian, she asked what the meal options were before responding. This is due to the fact that she was vegetarian but because Gabby made fun of her so much, she has slowly started to eat meat products. It also has to do with dietary intake but I find it amusing that Gabby has the ability to manage research facilities globally as well as convince long time vegetarians that chicken is tasty.

Both Gabby and Connie are coming to Australia early next year and I look forward to seeing both of them again. On conversation topics, I will be interested in CA research development and what other types of meat Connie is eating.