Guy Haskin Fernald '94
Biomathematics Researcher
UC San Francisco
and former internet entrepreneur
"Attention Shoppers: Internet Is Open" read the August 12, 1994
headline of the New York Times article featuring the company I
co-founded while still a senior at Swarthmore. On August 11th
we had made Internet history by receiving the first securely encrypted
credit card transaction from a web browser for the purchase of
the compact disc "Ten Summoners' Tales" by Sting. The charge was
for just $12.48 plus shipping, but it was the beginning of a commerce
system that has outgrown nearly all expectations. During my senior
year at Swarthmore, I had spent many weekends in New Hampshire,
writing software to create commerce websites for the then nascent
World Wide Web. The success of the Web and of our company launched
me into an extended sojourn through Internet entrepreneurism that
took me from eating ramen out of a crock pot to dining at the
finest restaurants in Silicon Valley. What was originally planned
as a brief exploration before graduate school swept me into many
more exhilarating years working in Internet software.
Our company was called NetMarket and was started by four college
graduates, three of whom were from Swarthmore. In the next year
we grew NetMarket to nearly thirty people and created Internet
storefronts for CD companies, electronics stores, flower shops,
and several other companies. We ultimately sold the company and
within two years I returned to my native California where I entered
the center of the now energized world Internet software startups.
My next company I joined was called Ariba, where I was a member
the original engineering team creating the first wave of multi-tiered
business applications for the web. The company was a huge success
and we grew it from a dozen people to a publicly traded company
with more than 1,500 employees over the next four years. They
were four incredible years, full of long hours of programming,
traveling to businesses and conferences, and recruiting and managing
many new talented programmers.
After a time I decided to take a sabbatical from Internet software
to reconsider other career possibilities. I moved with my wife
to Mexico and worked as a computer consultant for the National
Institute of Health and began to explore the new ways in which
mathematics and technology were being applied to facilitate and
contribute to social, medical, and biological research. When we
returned to California I took courses in chemistry, biology, and
bioinformatics and took a position as a Research Associate at
the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
I have now been working at UCSF for two years, and I have had
the opportunity to author papers, present at conferences, and
collaborate with other researchers at UCSF and other universities.
The application of mathematics to biology has been fascinating.
I have applied statistics to analyze large biological datasets,
game theory to create agent-based simulations of biological activity,
and information theory to create networks of genetic information
based on calculations of entropy. The result has been an exciting
combination of mathematics, computation, and biology. I am now
pursuing this interest further by returning to my original post-graduation
plans to go to graduate school so that I may continue to engage
in and refine my research goals and interests.
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