Katherine Tynan

I am a 1984 Galway graduate in Microbiology and Genetics. During the 1980s, I was a graduate student in Human Genetics in Calgary, Alberta, when I got an opportunity to be one of the first postdocs on the Human Genome Project at LLNL California in 1989. In 1991, I moved to Stanford as a postdoc to join the first training group for the American College of Medical Genetics in Molecular Genetics. I knew I wanted to stay in the United States because this was where Molecular Genetics was set to evolve in the coming years.

That same year, I took the plunge, marrying my British boyfriend in a wedding chapel in San Francisco on May 18, 1991, just a week before the first Morrison Visa applications were due. The rest, as they say, is history. I went on to become a project lead on the 3700ABI Sequencing Platform, which sequenced the first draft of the Human Genome in 2001.

“Being green card holders and later U.S. citizens placed us on the ground floor of the burgeoning Biotech Industry in the San Francisco Bay Area.”

Getting married for a green card is one of our favorite origin stories. Irish citizens were favoured in the program, which led to two very independent people, who had sworn off marriage, tying the knot in front of my sister and five friends in a kitschy wedding chapel in San Francisco. It was rare in those days for an Irish woman scientist to have a significant advantage over a British Cambridge graduate! Nearly 40 years later, we are still together.

Transitioning from academia into the business world within a rapidly evolving field, scientifically, technologically, and commercially, was a significant challenge. Fortunately, failure is well tolerated in California’s entrepreneurial environment. Having faced many setbacks, I learned to lean into my Irish superpowers of storytelling and networking, using shared interests in science, the outdoors, food, and wine to build a career and a community.

“I built a big life surrounded by amazing people, none of which would have been possible without a large quotient of luck, being in the right place at the right time with the right skills.”

The Morrison Visa program profoundly changed my life, both personally and professionally, and accelerated my integration into the United States. It was a profoundly positive force for both its recipients and for the U.S. I talk about how lucky we were to this day to have been able to take advantage of this program.