VMASC is excited to feature Kevin O’Brien, Software Developer Specialist, who is from Suffolk, VA where VMASC is located, and recently went through two major life changes – marriage and buying a house!

Kevin graduated with a computer science bachelor’s degree from Old Dominion University in May of 2021. He’s had many jobs growing up from mowing lawns to working at Bojangles to interning at VMASC in high school. During that internship, he met Dr. Jose Padilla, Research Associate Professor, who was an integral part in helping Kevin become more confident in his work abilities.

“While I was in college, I wasn’t completely confident in my computer science skills, even though I was learning so much. After meeting Dr. Padilla and working for him, my confidence in my computer science skills doubled. I realized that I wanted to be here. I loved the environment, the nature of what we were doing and the people working here,” said Kevin.

Since being at VMASC, Kevin is most proud of the work he has done on the UNOS Lung Donor Model and becoming a mentor to others here at VMASC. “I’m proud of the work I’ve done on the Lung Model because it contributes to something greater than us. I think more recently I’ve become a mentor and I’ve really enjoyed that. I feel comfortable informing and helping others because I too was once in their shoes,” Kevin said.

For his future goals at VMASC, Kevin wants to create a project that he’s fully in charge of that will be useful to companies and others in the building. “The lung modeling was based off another model that someone at VMASC created. I want to do something similar. I have the framework in the works to create a project that I will execute and be in charge of, and that is really exciting,” Kevin said.