Victoria Stuart

    Tue 2024-Sep-10  |  Last modified: 2024-09-23 10:49:05 -0700 (PST)

      victoria.jpg
      Victoria Stuart
      She/her/hers 🏳️‍⚧️

    Our appreciation of the world is enhanced
    when we understand more about the things within it.

    -- Victoria Stuart, 2024

    Hello!   👋

    I've been posting on @persagen@Mastodon.social since 2023-May-28.

    Here is a bit about me.

    Originally from the Halifax region of Nova Scotia - Fall River - I have lived in British Columbia, then North Carolina, then British Columbia again (at home in the beautiful Pacific Northwest), for many years. 🙂

    • Personal webpage: VictoriasJourney.com

    • LinkedIn

    Politically, I most align with social democracy. For the rationale, please see this screenshot (my text).

    Research/consultancy

    With a background in biochemistry (Hon. B.Sc., Dalhousie University, polynucleotide chemistry and molecular biology), then occupational and environmental health and safety (M.Sc., University of British Columbia), I am formally/academically trained and previously employed in molecular life sciences (Ph.D., Biology, University of Victoria: specialization in molecular genetics, mechanisms of ageing, mutagenesis and carcinogenesis).

    After I was awarded my Ph.D., I spent nearly 8 years in North Carolina (post-doc: NCSU; Duke University; research associate, National Academy of Sciences/U.S. ARO), before returning to Canada. 🇨🇦 🥳

    Here are some of my publications spanning that period.

    I also served for a number of years as a life sciences consultant (bioinformatics; molecular genetics; health/medical sciences; physiology and stress response; pathogens; ...) to U.S. federal agencies.

    I supplemented that work with extensive self-instruction in programming (e.g. Python; R; BASH scripts) and data science (data structures; relational databases).

    I am a Linux superuser: StackOverflow.

    I am also highly skilled in de novo web development (HTML, JavaScript, CSS, PHP, SSL/TLS). I hand-coded (Vim) my Persagen.org website.

    I understand the fundamentals (theory and practice) of machine learning and natural language processing, with a keen interest in information extraction, ontology, and knowledge graphs.

    I broadly monitor developments, trends, and applications in the biomedical, life sciences, scientific and technological domains including life sciences research, artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing (including LLM: large language models), etc.

    Advocacy

    Those core skills (academic scholarship; active learning; critical thinking; problem solving; leadership, teamwork and mentoring; education) are broadly applicable in the humanities, nonprofit, and advocacy domains.

    • research; critical reading; active learning

    • authorship

    • leadership, teamwork, collaboration, and mentoring

    Current challenges facing all of us include erosion of rights, liberties, and freedoms; inequality; global warming and climate change; pollution and ecological destruction; corporate greed; disruptive emerging technologies (artificial general intelligence); ... 🤔

    Hence, I advocate passionately and tirelessly for environmental health, universal human rights, and social justice – with a particular interest in wealth, power, and influence, the issues they cause, and solutions to those issues.

    This work includes, but is not limited to:

    • ideologies: conservatism; identity politics

    • majority-minority relations, including including divisive rhetoric, populism, culture wars

    • inequality: discrimination; wealth concentration

    • environmental advocacy

    • educational outreach, e.g. Mastodon.social/@Persagen

    • Persagen.org - my professional/independent research website 📖 🔎

      • demonstration/exemplar: Leonard A. Leo - note the biography, ontology (D3.js visualization), knowledge graph (Cytoscape.js) tabs.

    Lastly, as a mature trans woman 🏳️‍⚧️ I also volunteer as a board member for two independent but collaborating nonprofit 2SLGBTQIA+ 🏳️‍🌈 seniors advocacy groups.

    • Dignity Seniors Society (DSS): Vancouver, British Columbia; and

    • Senior Pride Network Canada/Réseau de la Fierté des Aîné·e·s du Canada (SPNC/RFAC), Ottawa, Ontario.

    DSS is dedicated to affecting systemic change that creates culturally appropriate services for 2SLGBTQIA+ seniors across British Columbia - while SPNC/RFAC exists to unite, advocate for, and empower older/senior/elder 2SLGBTQIA+ people across Canada.

    If you made it this far, I wish you peace and joy; be kind to one another! 🕊️

    Namaste, 🙏
    Victoria Stuart (she/her/hers 🏳️‍⚧️ 🏳️‍🌈)
    [Dr. Victoria A. Stuart, Ph.D.]

    e: mail@VictoriasJourney.com [preferred]
    e: Victoria.A.Stuart@gmail.com
    w: VictoriasJourney.com [personal]
    w: Persagen.org [professional]

    Land acknowledgement

    I acknowledge with gratitude that I live and work on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples - the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.