Victoria Stuart, 2012-05-20
Victoria's Journey
Introduction
Created: 2012-05
Last modified: 2023-07-22 11:20:53 -0700 (PST)
Hello, welcome to my personal website, VictoriasJourney.com! 🙂
I grew up in just outside Halifax, Nova Scotia. Following attendance at various local schools (... George P. Vanier Jr. High School; Sackville High School / first graduating class of Charles P. Allen High School) before attending Dalhousie University - graduating with a B.Sc. with Honors in Biochemistry (now the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology).
I later obtained my Master of Science degree in Occupational Hygiene (now the School of Environmental Health) at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, B.C.. I then moved to Victoria, B.C. (on Vancouver Island), where I obtained my Doctorate (Ph.D. in Biology, specializing in molecular genetics) from the University of Victoria.
Following my graduation from UVic I moved to Durham, North Carolina where I conducted post-doctoral research (mitochondrial genetics; bioinformatics; etc.) in the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics (now the Genome Integrity and Structural Biology Laboratory) at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
After nearly eight years in N.C. I returned to Canada (Vancouver), where I currently reside and work.
"G.R.S."
Those of you in my distant past may have known me as Greg Stuart. While I was living / working in North Carolina I began (2006) my transition to Victoria. 🤔
When I left North Carolina at the end of 2008-10 I started living full-time as Victoria - also starting my 7,500 mile return trip by car back to British Columbia via Nova Scotia, Ontario, under the Great Lakes and across the Great Plains, up through Alberta, and west again to B.C.
That was my third time driving across North America; notable highlights on that journey included stops at Niagara Falls, Little Big Horn, Pompeys Pillar National Monument (one of the few identified resting places of the Lewis and Clark Expedition), Glacier National Park, Montana, Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, Alberta, and the Canadian Rockies.
Back in Vancouver, British Columbia, early in 2010 I started preparation for gender-affirming surgery. (Ironically, the dated term for that surgery - gender reassignment surgery - match my old initials: Gregory R. Stuart.) I had my surgery with Drs. Pierre Brassard and Maud Bélanger at GRS Montreal on 2011-06-27. GRS Montreal is notable for the skill of these surgeons, and its recovery / convalescence home - L'Ascléipiade (pronounced l'as-clay-p'-aide). There was a wonderful pictorial of L'Asclépiade on a former patient's website; while that webpage no longer exists, I saved a PDF copy before it vanished.
On a more somber note, that transition had costs - the end of a >20-year marriage, and ostracization by family members - including my sole parent and siblings, other family members. ... While that is unfortunate, our time on this planet is finite, and my life is authentic: true to self,
Professional life
As mentioned, I hold a Ph.D. (2000: Biology, University of Victoria - specializing in Molecular Genetics) and I've been self-employed ~2009-06+. For some years I was a scientific consultant (Persagen.com), conducting scientific review in life sciences/genetics and genomic/bioinformatic analyses for clients at U.S. federal research institutes and agencies. 🤓
My more recent work (~2014-present) includes the natural language processing, machine learning and artificial intelligence - summarized to some extent in my curriculum vitae, cover Letter and technical Biography.
Most recently I have been focused on NLP-based information extraction and knowledge discovery, graphical models (knowledge graphs ...) - and I have been developing a knowledge engine: Persagen.com.
Social media
You can find me on social media primarily via my Persagen.com account on Mastodon: @persagen@mastodon.social. Other Persagen.com social media accounts are listed in Persagen's FAQ page.
Personal life
I strive for excellence in my private and professional life.
I describe myself as being positive, good-natured, intelligent, loyal and compassionate. I walk everywhere, and I have been intermittent fasting since late 2015 (zero calories on Tuesdays and Thursdays; no evening snacking, since ~2019-10).
The second downward slope starting - around 2019-02; stabilizing again around 2019-10 - is when I eliminated evening snacking.
The third downward slope - around mid-2022 - is when I largely stopped occasional snacking on junk food (chips; candies; ...) on weekends while relaxing with my girlfriend. I attribute that slow, yet steady drop to prolonged residual effects of the glucose-fructose (high fructose corn syrup - i.e. fructose) that is prevalent in all processed foods in the modern era.
Notes.
I enjoy all types of music (my personal music collection - all genres, exceeds >100k titles, with a particular fondness for jazz), travel, food (all types), cooking/baking, science & technology, fashion, history, current events, conversation ... 🙂
I love to cook and bake: I make my own bread, granola; ... and all meals are home-made from basic ingredients. Proteins include chicken, beef and lentils; oil preferences are Tunisian extra-virgin olive oil, butter, and lard for baking. I limit the consumption of processed foods, especially margarine and fructose.
Other than recent professional use (2023+) relating to my business (Persagen.com; refer above), I am not otherwise on social media.
I very am fortunate to have a loving and supportive girlfriend, Carm! 👩❤️👩 🏳️🌈 We met at a party in 2011, and have been inseparable since: 4,161 days (2023-04-18) and counting! 💕
All of this alludes to a core issue for me, "quality of life." Interestingly, since the late '80's one of my favorite books has been "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values," in which author Robert M. Pirsig explores the metaphysics of quality.
Namaste,
Victoria Stuart,
Vancouver, B.C.
E-mail: mail@VictoriasJourney.com
Web: VictoriasJourney | Persagen.com