I'm one of those odd people who have only had one job for nearly 35 years. I'm a computer scientist at the Naval Research Lab. I provide computer support for oceanographers, geophysicists and acousticians.

Actually although I have worked at the Lab for 35 years I've worked in several different groups along the way. I started out in the group that found the Scorpion. It was a nuclear submarine that was lost in 1968. We spent about 6 months wandering around the ocean in its vicinity before we finally took some pictures of it. Later while working with the same group we located and recovered the research submersible Alvin.

I spent a lot of time on research ships for several years. We got to go to a lot of interesting places while trying to collect and process data that the Navy thought was of value. Along the way I learned a lot about the ocean and even more about how to make computers do what I wanted them to do.

Most recently I've been working with a bunch of geophysicists developing a method of measuring the gravity field from aircraft. Yes, gravity varies over the surface of the earth depending on the local amount of mass beneath you. It only varies a few parts in a million, so measuring it from a moving platform is a challenge.

Dean Clamons