How Government Science Engages Global Issues – One personal journey through multiple research projects
Dr. Corey Hudson (Sandia National Laboratories) discusses the way his personal journey in science has developed in the context of doing high consequence research for the US Department of Energy. His work started as a postdoc involved in projects as disparate as identifying industrially relevant enzymes for biomanufacturing, sequencing and assembling the genomes of antibiotic resistant bacterial and studying their evolution, and building databases of mobile genetic elements. As a staff member he had the opportunity to serve as lab coordinator and government liaison for the Sierra Leone Ebola response effort, helped develop new software and algorithms for synthetic biology, and helped build a field called “Digital Biosecurity.” Since becoming a manager, Dr. Hudson has built a research portfolio around modeling carbon capture by soils, protecting vaccine production facilities, and using high performance computing for antibody design. National laboratories are a unique place for researchers who are extremely curious and deeply interested in working in big problem areas. Because of the kind of work at national labs, projects are often in extremely high risk and high reward areas, and the work is like academics. In addition, researchers also get to transition technologies from a really early stage to active use, similar to the work of industrial scientists. In just over a decade, Dr. Hudson has engaged in research spanning topics related to global issues in public health, climate change, and biosecurity.