Blog #5: 2025 Recap
01 January 2026
Overview
Each year, I post the 10 accomplishments I'm proudest of to my Instagram. This year, I'd like to do it on my blog! This is a mix of personal and professional achievements in no particular order (except #1 of course). Enjoy!
#10 Read 63 Books
I fell short of last year's 66 books, but this year had some of the best books I've read. My favorite of the year goes to Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Math Behind Modern AI by Anil Ananthaswamy; although technical at times, it left me with a genuine understanding of the most prominent machine learning methods. A few honorable mentions are The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, The Devils by Joe Abercrombie, Katabasis by R.F. Kuang (boola boola!), and I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman.
#9 Presented ... a Lot!
This may be the most professional presentations I've done in a year. If the jitters weren't already dispelled heading into 2025, they are certainly gone now. To select a representative bunch, I presented:
- my drug discovery research at the Radiobiology and Genome Integrity Research Seminar in March
- an information theory workshop at the Julia Robinson Math Festival in March
- a software application I wrote to accelerate high-throughput image analysis (Project 2) at the American Association of Cancer Researchers Annual Meeting in April
- an interactive exhibit at the AI at Yale Symposium in May (Project 3)
- an original workshop on geometry and physics for New Haven public schools (Blog 3) in July
- a Vision Seminar on cancer research for the Korean American Society of Connecticut in November
- a lecture on learning to code efficiently for YBDIC's Computation in Research Lecture Series in December
#8 Learned to Swim
Although I could paddle around a pool or swim at the beach, I am (was?) a very weak swimmer. If I was in a shipwreck and there wasn't anything floaty to hang onto, I'm a goner. Somewhere along the way, I developed a fear of being in water too deep to stand in. I swallowed my pride and signed up for adult swim lessons, and now I'm swimming laps three times a week! I'm hoping to become a genuinely good swimmer by the end of 2026.
#7 Made This Website
I go into more detail in Project 1, but I self-host this website using a Raspberry Pi, and I put it together entirely from the command line to practice my bash/Unix skills. Nowadays, I use a GitHub Runner that updates my server each time I push, so I'm writing this in VS Code, but I still learned so much about the CLI and computer networking.
#6 Received Highest Marks in My Final Committee Meeting
On October 27, I held my last committee meeting, where I laid out my dissertation outline and asked for approval to defend my thesis. Not only did I receive approval, but I received the highest marks in each of the grading criteria! My committee is a team of top researchers in DNA repair and cancer, so I was honored and relieved to hear their kind words.
#5 Published My First Python Package
The Python Package Index (PyPI) enables millions of Python users around the world to install software packages with a single command. I recently wrote a software application called CellPyAbility, succinctly described in this article. I learned so much about good software practices, testing, version control, and automation by preparing the codebase for PyPI. As of December 22nd, CellPyAbility v0.1.0 is now available on PyPI and was downloaded >100 times in the first week!
#4 Started Working for a Biotech
I'm still wrapping up my PhD, so the vast majority of my time is spent on academic research. However, I'm lucky enough to have been hired part-time by a local biotech in August! The science is exciting, the people are amazing, and I think I've already done some great work. Specifically, I work at the intersection of automation and AI engineering on 3D tissue culture image analysis for cancer patients. We are also working with NASA to study how microgravity impacts the behavior of cancer cells!
#3 Spent More Time with Family
I work too much. Thankfully, some changes this year reminded me to redistribute my time. After a few years in Florida for work, my folks moved back to New England, so Meaghan and I have been visiting much more often. I also officially became a part of Meaghan's family, although they've always made me feel welcome. My mother passed a few years ago, but her siblings live near Yale and have essentially adopted Meaghan and me. Last but not least, I visited my big sister in Sweden for the first time! She's a postdoc at the University of Gothenburg, and I am so proud of her. The Christmas markets were in full swing, so it was a magical time to be in Scandinavia.
#2 Received the F31 National Research Service Award
It's no secret that 2025 was a brutal year for research funding. After hundreds of hours of writing and editing, my grant was tossed and turned by the NIH chaos. Luckily, after some delays, the grant received an excellent score. I'm honored to have been selected by the National Cancer Institute to receive the F31, an award of roughly $100K. After applying for and receiving a competitive T32 slot via the Cancer Biology Training Program, this means all but a few months of my doctoral studies were paid for by external, competitive sources.
#1 Married My Best Friend
On our seventh anniversary, Meaghan and I got married in the Scottish Highlands. We had an intimate ceremony in the Caledonian woods with our immediate family, then set off on the West Highland Way through the mountains to Fort William. It was a perfect wedding with my perfect person.
Thank you for reading until the end! It was an incredible year, and it would not have been possible without my incredible friends, family, and coworkers. Same time next year?
James