Gary's Professional Interests

After  nine years as the Director of Bioinformatics at the Rochester Institute of Technology, two years as the Interim Head of the School of Biological and Medical Sciences, and two years as the Associate Head of the Thomas H. Gosnell School of Life Sciences, Gary is now concentrating on his career.  In his former role as the Director of Bioinformatics he was responsible for developing and implementing BS and MS degree granting programs in Bioinformatics. He also established partnerships with biotechnology and bioinformatics companies which provide opportunities for his students to gain "real world" experience in addition to their academic pursuits. Now he continues to provide advocacy and leadership for faculty and staff who together support six academic programs.

For more than a dozen years Gary's research interests were focused  on studying the genetics of neurofibromatosis type I or NF1. This disease has  been traditionally known as elephant man's disease however recent work has  suggested that Joseph Merrick, the elephant man, actually had a different  disease but since the name recognition works to our advantage we have kept it.  NF1 is a remarkably common disease with diverse clinical features. If you have  the time just ask Gary about his work and he will be glad to tell you more than  you probably want to know.  You can learn more about his research activities by  clicking here: Gary's  Research Laboratory.

Gary has taught more than fifty courses, both traditional and online,  at Monroe Community  College, the Rochester Institute of  Technology, and Empire State  College and the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. In addition he has participated in  Science Exploration Day at St. John Fisher College and played a pivotal role in  founding Science Action at Dudley and Northside schools in Fairport.  Unlike  research, teaching is an endeavor by  which gratification is achieved in an  instantaneous and ongoing manner.

Currently Gary provides consulting services to the federal  government, publishers, biopharmaceutical companies and defense attorneys  working with DNA evidence.  He also provides wireless voice and data communications support for Airsupport, LLC.  You can view his curriculum vitae here.

Gary's  Hobbies

Gary's hobbies range from computers and  amateur radio (unseparable as far as he can tell) to handguns. He holds an Amateur Extra license and spends way too much time building and rebuilding his radio shack at home.  Unfortunately there is never enough time to use it.

Over the past few years Gary and other local hams have installed DStar and Fusion repeaters for use by local hams. The computer network in the shack and throughout the house is switched 1000Mbps Ethernet, with wired and wireless segments with more than 40TB of shared storage.  Among the computers in the house there are several boxes running Windows 10,  Windows 11, MacOS and various flavors of Linux. 

Among his other hobbies, perhaps foremost among them, is his affection for the guitar.  You can see some relevant images here.

Gary is a former Chairman of the  Rochester Amateur Packet Society (a local packet club) and is a founding member  of the Digital Communication Association of Perinton (DCAP, a more local packet  club).  Due to his  interests in digital communications he is a de facto subscriber to  wa2zkd's motto that "data should be seen and not heard".

He was on the Rochester Amateur Radio Association (RARA) Board of Directors for a while, was a member of their VE team for 7 years and served as their Vice President and Program Director for 3 years.  He is currently the trustee of the W2DUC analog repeater on 146.715 and the W2DUC D-STAR repeater on 444.8 MHz.  Both repeaters are supported by the members of DCAP.

He also likes to watch and listen to aircraft.  You can see the traffic above and around Rochester here.

Gary’s interests are broad and lead him to frequently visit a number of websites you may be interested in.  Please check them out here.