Damon May, Project Violet

Damon May: a meaningful computer scientist

by Graciela Matrajt

When Damon May studied computer science, he never imagined that one day he would have a career in scientific research. After he obtained his BS in computer science at Yale, Damon joined Oracle as a software developer. But after a few years, he felt he wanted to learn more to move toward a more personally meaningful career. He registered for evening classes at the University of Washington, and in 2005 he received a Master's in Computer Science and Engineering.

When he saw a job opening in the Computational Biology group at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, he immediately applied. This was a great opportunity to move his career toward those things that were meaningful for him: work in a non-profit organization whose primary mission is to cure disease and participate in exciting research. Damon has a young daughter who has had some health complications since she was born. So, for him, using his computational skills to help advance science in the health sector was a personal conviction.

For seven years, Damon applied his computational abilities to finding biomarkers for disease, and he developed software to help interpret mass spectrometry data. In 2012, Jim Olson contacted the Computational Biology group where Damon worked. Jim needed someone to help with the project of building complicated libraries of peptide drugs. Luckily, Damon's Principal Investigator chose Damon to participate in this thrilling project.

At first, the idea was that Damon would provide consulting services from his group. He was going to design libraries of peptides and discover which of those peptides could be manufactured, and which ones could be recovered from animal tissue or plasma. After a few months, Damon discovered that the project was very stimulating and that his work could have a direct impact on outcomes for millions of people. Indeed, his results were directly involved in drug discovery and drug development. 

Working for Jim allowed Damon to move his career forward. In addition, Jim's interest in curing brain cancer in kids was very inspiring for Damon. With a child of his own with health issues, Damon felt a particular kinship with the parents of Jim's patients and wanted to help them, too. Thus, in 2013 he joined Jim’s team to work full-time on the peptide drug discovery project.

Damon has very much enjoyed working within Jim's group. In addition to the research he helps to conduct, Damon enjoys the huge effort the group makes to involve people in the process of research. He has actively participated in outreach work: “I enjoy speaking to people about Project Violet. I like to reach out to children and open their eyes to science by talking about a project that kids find intrinsically exciting and fun”. 

All these activities have inspired Damon so much that now he wants to do his own research. This fall, Damon will leave Jim's group to start a PhD in the Genome Sciences graduate program at the University of Washington. He wants to explore other scientific topics where a computational biologist could contribute and thrive. He is also excited about pursuing a PhD as a model for his daughter, who will grow up around his research. Damon envisions conducting his research in the Seattle area that he has come to love.