00:00:02Kregg Quarles: Okay. My name is Kregg Quarles, and I am interviewing Dr. Karl Walker via Zoom for the Black Excellence in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] oral history project. Today is June 11, 2021. So, can you start off by stating your full name and date of birth for the record?
00:00:31Karl Walker: All right. Well, I’m Karl Walker. I was born October 1, 1980.
00:00:37Kregg Quarles: Okay. What were your parents’ names, where did they grow up, and what did they do for work?
00:00:46Karl Walker: Okay. Well, my mother’s name is Jewell Walker. She grew up in Augusta, Arkansas. She spent a lot of her career as an educator, working as a professor. And as the dean of the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff where I currently teach.
00:01:13Kregg Quarles: Okay. And how about your father?
00:01:15Karl Walker: My dad, his name was David E. Walker Sr., and he was born and raised in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and he was a dentist. That was his career. He was a dentist.
00:01:34Kregg Quarles: Nice, nice. And where were you born?
00:01:41Karl Walker: Well, I was born there in Pine Bluff myself. So, I’m a Pine Bluff native. Pine Bluff, Arkansas--yeah.
00:01:49Kregg Quarles: Okay. Do you have any siblings, and could you also tell me just a little bit about your childhood?
00:01:57Karl Walker: Okay, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. I’m the youngest of six kids. I have three brothers and two sisters. My oldest brother is David E. Walker Jr. He followed my dad’s footsteps, became a dentist and then specialized in orthodontics, so he’s an orthodontist in the Dallas area. And my second oldest brother is Brian Walker; he works for State Farm as a manager there. He went into business; that’s what he followed. And then my third oldest brother is Torrance Walker, and he’s the third oldest. He’s an orthopedic surgeon in the Dallas region--all of my brothers are in the Dallas region right now; it seems like everybody’s moving to Dallas, man. I don’t know what it is. Then, I have two sisters. Lori, she works for the City of Pine Bluff, so she’s in Pine Bluff, and she went into business as well. That’s her area…where she did her education. And then my sister next to me, she works for the Walmart Corporation. She’s a manager--some kind of area manager or something. She travels around. I don’t know exactly what her title is, but she goes and manages different stores in the region there in the Dallas area. She’s in the Dallas area, too. So, only my sister Lori and I are still in Arkansas. Everybody else has high-tailed it to Texas. But--yeah, still here holding it down for the rest of us.
00:03:50Kregg Quarles: Okay. So, can you tell me a little bit about your childhood, what was growing up, and if there were any connections between that and, you know--?
00:04:02Karl Walker: My childhood, well, yeah. Like I said, my dad was a dentist. Very prominent dentist in the area, so he was very well known in the city. A lot of people knew him. And just by virtue they would know me. It’s like, oh you’re Dr. Walker’s son. So, you couldn’t go anywhere. I couldn’t get in any trouble without him finding out. I think seeing my dad, everybody refer to him with the respect he had--call him Dr. Walker--I was like, ah, that’s the kind of respect that I’d probably want when I grow up. So, I always set my mind on going into medicine. My uncle, [my dad’s] brother, went into medicine. He’s a physician here. I saw my dad--he worked hard as a dentist. I was like, you know, I wanna be a doctor; I wanna go to medical school.That’s what I wanted to do in my mind, but nothing about what I did actually, you know--I guess you could say everything I was doing was basically in the arts. I wanted to be an artist, really, behind the scenes, but I kinda wanted to still be a doctor. I don’t know--as a child’s mind--I don’t know how you think about that. I love art; I love drawing; I love painting. I used to paint murals and do things like that. But just going around and seeing my dad and his friends. My dad’s friends, they had nice houses; people respected them. [Called them] Doctor so-and-so; Doctor this. I’m like, all right; it sounds nice. And then later on, my mom got her doctorate, and she became a professor, but she got her doctorate--I think she graduated the same year we graduated from our bachelor’s with her doctorate. So, that wasn’t part of my upbringing, but it was still shaping my further career, as far as being a professor. Like, hey, that’s another option for me. I don’t have to go through the long hours--you know. Like my uncle. I saw my uncle working all the time as a physician. He still works hard. Works hard! Works all the time in the hospital. You have to, rarely, catch him on a day off. And my dad, of course, would work very hard as a dentist; people’d call him in the middle of the night with a toothache. People respected him mainly for that reason. If they had a problem, he would go--and he would sit up, get up, and try to help ‘em with it, whatever the problem is, so people really loved my dad around the city. Of course, my brothers and sisters, they all went off to college and got their education. Oldest brother, he went into dentistry, went to Meharry Medical College School of Dentistry like my dad and my uncle. Did that thing. Seeing that, I think definitely shaped my thought that, hey, this is something that’s not far-fetched; if I wanna do it, I can do it. Now, the question is, do I wanna do it? ‘Cause I’ve seen both sides of it. I’ve seen the respect out in the street; everybody respects you, but I also seen the hard work and the long hours. I’m like, nah, I wanna do something different. So, I got to Morehouse College; I still was pre-med. We did the summer program and got exposed to different…you know, computer science and physics and math and all this kind of stuff. So, I was like, you know what, I’ve always liked computers. ‘Cause I used to go sit in my mom’s office. She worked--even worked as a teacher on campus before she got her doctorate. She had her master’s, and she worked out on campus. So, I would go play on her computer and write little programs or do little graphics. I would always play on a computer, even before it was popular to have a computer at home--before you could have a home computer. So, all of that shaped what I ended up doing.
00:08:38Kregg Quarles: Around how old were you when you were doing that? When you were--
00:08:41Karl Walker: What?
00:08:43Kregg Quarles: Oh, around how old were you when you were, you know, going to your mom’s office and playing on her computer?
00:08:50Karl Walker: Um--I don’t know. I really don’t know. I probably had to be probably middle school age or even younger. When I really remember playing on the computer, doing the graphics and things like that, I was probably in middle school, but junior high is what they called it back then. So, probably about, maybe…I don’t know, what age is that now? Lemme see, eleven--twelve, something like that. Eleven, twelve. Yeah. Eleven, twelve years old. Now, I remember when we got our first computer at home, and I was on that thing all the time. Man, I was just--I was an artist. I liked doing art, so I would do a lot of graphics and stuff like that; that’s what I was usually doing. Learning how to write some little codes to make drawings on the computer and stuff like that. So, in other words, I wasn’t unfamiliar with a computer. I would play around with it; it was just a fun thing to do. I never thought of it as a career or something that I would actually go into ‘cause I had my mind set on pre-med, becoming a doctor. I didn’t wanna be a dentist. I don’t know why. Maybe it was just being rebellious. Wanting to do something different than my brother did. [I felt like,] my brother did that; okay, I’ma do something different. But, that was probably the only reason. But, when we were at the summer program, COE--
00:10:32Kregg Quarles: Can you tell me what COE stands for?
00:10:35Karl Walker: Oh, Center of Excellence Summer Program--pre-freshman summer program. So, when I was there, I met a lot of good brothers as you know, right?
00:10:45Kregg Quarles: That’s right!
00:10:46Karl Walker: You know, formed some lifelong brotherhoods there and that camaraderie and the good times, you know. Just--it was a good experience. Especially the math, Dr. Shabazz, and then the computer science with Dr. Jones. Yeah.
00:11:14Kregg Quarles: Right.
00:11:15Karl Walker: Dr. Jones, man. That was a tough class! That was a tough class. You know, almost everybody failed that class! Nobody got credit--
00:11:24Kregg Quarles: Why--
00:11:25Karl Walker: Huh?
00:11:26Kregg Quarles: Why is that?
00:11:27Karl Walker: It was tough, man! It was tough. Yeah, I was the only one to pass that class that summer. Nobody else passed. And then he was on my butt ever since then about changing my major to computer science.
00:11:43Kregg Quarles: Okay. So, tell me how did that path go? How did that transpire? ‘Cause, you know, you were still pre-med, and he’s on your butt and--
00:11:51Karl Walker: Well, actually, I’d changed from pre-med because I couldn’t get into the NASA program if I was pre-med, but I was still chemistry. So, instead of chemistry/pre-med, I had changed to chemistry/chemical engineering. Dual degree. So, I had changed away from pre-med, but my mind was still--in the back of my head I was still like, okay, chemistry is chemistry. I could do whatever I want after college; even if I get my engineering degree, I could still do that. But, I changed it completely after--so, anyway, he convinced me--like, man, you know, you should just change to computer science. So, I was like, well, I still wanna do something in the sciences. I still wanna do something. I didn’t like biology and as much as I liked chemistry ‘cause, for me, biology was like--it’s just reading and regurgitating, memorization. It didn’t seem like it had a lot of rhyme or reason to it, in my opinion at the time. Because I didn’t really find a connection; it was just memory, you know? You just have to memorize a lot of facts, a lot of things. With chemistry, you learn the rules. Same thing with physics. You learn the rules, and you apply the rules, the formulas, right? And you’re good. I don’t have to sit there and read a bunch of facts over and over and over again because once you got it, you got it! It’s done! Okay. You know how to balance an equation? Okay. I got that. All right. You know what molar mass and all this stuff means? Okay. I got it, right? You don’t have to sit there--because I didn’t like to--I mean, I guess it didn’t attract me. I like things that I can actually logically apply--and that’s what attracted me. So, of course, computer science being pure logic--just if-this-then-else logical…algorithms and writing the programs, and they either work, or they don’t work. It was difficult at first, you know? Kinda like with physics. Had struggles with that. I had a good friend, you know--even think you might know him! Helped me get over that hurdle, but same thing with that. I had a--one of my classmates…not my classmate; he was a upper-classman. But…Farai and Barry. I went to their dorm rooms one night. I was like, man, show me how this stuff works because I’m kinda confused. It took about maybe an hour, maybe less. Showed me the ropes, and I was like, okay. I got it. I got it. I like it. It makes sense. That’s what it--actually, I didn’t tell anybody--but that’s actually what enabled me to pass the class. I put in the extra effort; I wasn’t gonna let it beat me. And that’s a kind of a saying my granddad always used to say. He was a carpenter. He would sit there all night, you know, just trying to figure out something when he’s working on a door or building a house or making a new tool--he would like to make his own tools sometimes to make his job easier. And he’ll sit engineering a new device. Like, he had this one device called--he called it a dead man or something. He made it out of a pulley, and he cranks up--like, when he’s hanging sheetrock or something, he’d just crank it up there--and I mean, they sell those now, but he made his own. That was his saying. He would--like, you know what, I ain’t gon’ let this beat me. And he would just sit there until he figured it out, right? And that’s the kinda mentality I had when--I don’t understand this now, but I ain’t gon’ let it beat me. It’s not something I can’t understand; I might have to work a little longer until I get it. But, once I get it, I got it. That’s kinda the mindset I had. Got that from him, I guess. Nothing is too hard to understand. It may not be easy right off, but ain’t nothin’ too hard that you can’t get it. It’s up to you if you gon’ let it beat you or not. So, he--that was his mentality. I aint gon’ let this beat me now. And sometimes he’d be out there all night. And I’m like, Pawpaw, just give it up, man! C’mon inside! He’d be like, nah, man; I ain’t gon’ let this beat me. And then when he’d get it, it’s like, yeah, boy! Yeah! So, that’s kind of the…I guess that determination to succeed and not give up no matter the cost. So, anyway, long story short, I guess Dr. Jones had that same kind of mentality. Said, I ain’t gon’ let this slide. I’m like, nah, I’m not gonna change my major, but he stayed on me, and I eventually gave in. And it wasn’t until my freshman year--I said, I’ma take Computer Science II. I said I was gonna do that. Long story short, I ended up changing my major to computer science; I think it was a good choice. It was a good choice; I enjoyed it. Of course, I took a lot of science classes, even still. I didn’t take a lot of chemistry, oddly enough. I took a lot of physics.
00:17:37Kregg Quarles: Right.
00:17:38Karl Walker: Took a lot of physics ‘cause I enjoyed the sciences, you know. I didn’t take a lot of biology. I didn’t take a lot of biology. I really didn’t like biology, oddly enough. I just didn’t like it. It was not until my senior year--we all had to take a biology. So, I put it off as long as I could. So, senior year, I had to take biology. So, I’m like, all right, I’ma go ahead and get this out the way or else I aint gon’ graduate.
00:18:03Kregg Quarles: Yeah.
00:18:05Karl Walker: We had an option, being that we weren’t biology majors; we could have took regular biology or biology for majors. So, I was like, you know what, I need a challenge; I’ma take biology for majors. Even though I didn’t like biology, I loved the challenge. So, I was like, I’ma take biology for majors ‘cause there was a saying about how people can’t pass this class. It was one of those classes that a lot of people fail, called a weed-out class. So, [I said,] all right, I’m not gonna fail; I’ma take it. [People would say,] you crazy man; you can just take this other class. Long story short, man, that’s when I actually started to appreciate biology. That’s when I first started to appreciate biology. I didn’t like biology--
00:18:55Kregg Quarles: So, was there something that happened, or--what actually started giving you that appreciation for biology?
00:19:07Karl Walker: Well, I think it was the computer science and the physics classes that I had taken. And I think the way the field of biology had changed, I guess, since high school. It seemed like it was more--or maybe it was the rigor of the biology--it was molecular. You learn about the molecules, and you learn about the genes, genetics, and things like that. I’m like, okay, there is a pattern to this; I can understand genetics. There’s a rhyme and reason in genetics, right? And molecules? Okay, it’s chemistry; I can understand that. There are rules that govern that; it’s more than just rote memorization, and I could appreciate it more. And then learning about photosynthesis and the different formulas--they had the formulas in the book, and I’m like, I know this formula from somewhere, and it was from one of my physics classes. And I was like, okay; all right. So, I started to see biology as more than just rote memorization; I saw that it was just a combination of all these different sciences, even computer science. I started to see how genetics and genes are just code, right? I started to see that these chemical reactions…are just chemistry. These biological processes are just chemistry at another scale. Same thing with photosynthesis and all that. That’s just--what--electricity and magnetism, just physics, right? It’s the same stuff; it’s just all packaged in a way to create life. It’s a program to create life. So, that’s when I started to appreciate biology. And then I started looking for, well, what kind of careers can I do that combine biology and computer science? I found biomedical engineering, so I was like, I’m changing my major from chemical engineering to biomedical engineering. And so I was going to go to--I think there was a couple of campuses--during the dual degree program--a couple of campuses that did the biomedical engineering. I think Columbia University was one of them. So, I had talked to a guy from there, and I was planning to go to Columbia and do that. That was probably at the early part of my senior year. And then by the latter part of my senior year I’m like, you know what? I just wanna graduate; I just wanna get my degree, get a job, and do something different. I may do that later, but let me just do whatever I gotta do. So, I took I don’t know how many classes. I took an overload that last semester just so I could go ahead and graduate with my bachelor’s in computer science, and I was like, maybe I’ll go back and do engineering later as a master’s or something like that. So, that’s what I ended up doing. But, it still was on the back of my head. I still wanted to try to do something in the sciences, and biology was now my new favorite thing. Even though I used to hate it, it was now my new favorite thing because it combined all the things I loved: computer science, chemistry, physics. So, now, it was my new favorite thing. Anyway, I tried to do my own thing as a freelancer, software developer, doing little odd jobs. I don’t know if you remember setting up the physics lab, optics lab network. Doing that kind of stuff and just doing little odd jobs…creating HR systems. Programming--
00:22:56Kregg Quarles: What does that stand for, HI systems?
00:22:58Karl Walker: HR
00:22:59Kregg Quarles: Oh, HR. Human Resources.
00:23:01Karl Walker: Yeah. At different campuses. Setting up that ‘cause a lot of people still did stuff with paper, so I did some work creating database systems for them to start doing online applications, building websites, just trying my luck at being an entrepreneur. That gets tiring if--running your own business is-- it’s tough. If you don’t work, you don’t eat. There’s no days off with pay. No days off with pay. If you’re taking a day off, you’re taking pay off! So--it’s tough. So, I was like, you know what, I’m gonna swallow my pride, and I’m gonna start job hunting. I’ma go ahead and get me a job.
00:23:51Kregg Quarles: Can I ask around what years this would be just to get an idea?
00:23:57Karl Walker: Oh, yeah. I graduated in 2002 from Morehouse, so after that, I did a little freelance work for about a year or so, just working. Then, I took a part-time position, at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, actually, in their technical services department fixing computers, building websites, setting up their one card system. At that time, all the campuses were going to, you know--you just swipe a card and get your meals on there and all that. So, I helped set that up. Set up the new website at the time--just doing jobs there. At the same time still doing some freelance web development and things like that. Then I say, you know what, I’m tired; I miss Atlanta; let me go back to Atlanta. Went back to Atlanta for a little bit, and then I remembered why I left Atlanta--when I got back to Atlanta. Atlanta’s tough. It’s a tough place to live. I mean, it’s a fun place to live, and that’s probably why it’s tough because it’s hard to save money when you’re having fun. The two just don’t go together! So, anyway, I did some applications, and I landed a job at Alltel as a client/server developer, and what that means is basically you’re building websites that have both the client-side and the server-side. So, you’re basically a web--you know, web systems with a web interface. They’re basically software systems with a web interface; that’s what you do as a client server developer. I guess my experience building HR systems worked out because I managed their HR system there; I managed their commission system. They had a software system that did all the commissions for all the different--Alltel was a cell phone company. They were later bought out by Verizon, and I was there for that buyout, that split merge. So, anyway, long story short, man, I was working there for a while, but it really didn’t fulfill my passion for science, right? I loved doing the development. I liked the steady pace, steady income. I liked the days off with income. I liked all of that. That was great. But, I still had a passion for science, man, so I started looking for programs again that I could combine computer science and biology, and that’s what led me to bioinformatics. And they had a bioinformatics program here in Little Rock, Arkansas, so I applied to it. I got accepted. And he talked to me. I was like, hey, man, is there any, you know--he said, are you interested in an assistantship? I was like, well, I mean, I’m working right now, but I mean--then he said, well, you can work and have an assistantship, it will free you up to focus on your studies, and it sounded great to me at the time. It sounded great. Okay. I’m tired of working there. I probably had just gotten into it with my new boss because I had changed positions within the company. It was a lateral move, but me and the guy just didn’t gel like my previous supervisor. So, I was like, you know what, I think this is just, what they call it, ruffling the feathers. You know what I’m saying? It’s just time for me to… it’s just telling me I need to go ahead and do something else. So, I went on out there, and I say, I’m putting in my notice. Put in my notice and started school, man. Started school.
00:28:13Kregg Quarles: Can you tell me, how did you find this bioinformatics program? Did you just open up a catalog? Were you just…
00:28:24Karl Walker: I Googled computer science and biology, so computational biology and bioinformatics came up. It was like bioinformatics programs. I Googled bioinformatics programs, computational biology programs and found out that there was a bioinformatics program here in Little Rock. So, I was like, okay, bioinformatics it is. That was an easy transition because my wife was still working at Alltel at the time. So, I was like, well, I’m just gonna go to school. Which sounded great, you know? Sounded great. Which was a great choice, by the way. Mind you, taking a $40,000 pay cut--or was it more than that? Anyway, taking a big pay cut to go back to school is a hard thing. Yeah, it’s a hard thing, especially when you’re raising a family, so it sounded great as far as time-wise and my passion, but the money was a struggle. And money…losing that income was a struggle.
00:29:40Kregg Quarles: So, during this process…sounds like you got married and had a family?
00:29:50Karl Walker: Yeah, I got married in 2006. I started working at Alltel, I think, in 2005. I worked there until about 2008, and I went back to school that fall of 2008. So, about a couple of years after I got married, I decided, let me go back to school. My wife started working at Alltel about 2006. Yeah, around 2006.
00:30:26Kregg Quarles: Was it difficult to transition from Atlanta back to Arkansas…to Little Rock, or was that just an easy transition?
00:30:38Karl Walker: Well, it wasn’t a hard transition because I had family here. The activities and the things that you would do, of course, having as much fun in Hotlanta-- of course, I missed that, you know? That was a bit of a transition, but the ability to save money kinda counteracted that.
00:31:09Kregg Quarles: And it sounds like that was beneficial to the big pay cut as well.
00:31:17Karl Walker: Well, yeah. But, see, that was before the pay cut. Before the pay cut, that was when I was making some money. When I first moved back, I was making a nice little salary, so being able to save some of that money was pretty nice. Having that savings, of course, eased the cushion of the pay cut for a while. It eventually caught up with me, so having that ability to save money--because not only that, you can travel. So, I could travel to Atlanta. I could go back and visit, have fun. So, it was all right. It wasn’t bad. I actually enjoyed the slower pace of life. I enjoyed being back here more than I did the first time.
00:32:15Kregg Quarles: Okay.
00:32:16Karl Walker: It’s better when you have a little more money in your pocket, and you can--if you feel like escaping, you can just go somewhere.
00:32:24Kregg Quarles: Right, right.
00:32:26Karl Walker: You can just travel somewhere. [You can say,] hey, I wanna go to Atlanta. Okay. I’m going to Atlanta. I can fly there, or I can drive. It didn’t matter. Having a little bread helps that.
00:32:40Kregg Quarles: Yeah.
00:32:41Karl Walker: But, yeah, man. So, got in bioinformatics, man. I enjoyed it, doing the genetics, and I did protein structure prediction. That was my area of research. So, I got a chance to, of course, dig down deep into the genetics with how proteins are transcribed and the proteomics with the translation of the proteins and the amino acids and a little biochemistry with the molecular shape of the atoms and how they fold and all that good stuff. So, it was good--and the physics of all of that, right? Biophysics. So, I kinda liked that research project. It was a good fit for me. So, yeah. The rest is history.
00:33:39Kregg Quarles: Well, I would like to hear more about that history because it sounds like that was the beginning of what led to you--because you’re still doing research in bioinformatics. Is that correct?
00:33:54Karl Walker: Yeah. Yes. I’m not doing much work in protein structure prediction as much now. A lot of it’s been moving over to AI, artificial intelligence, and working in that arena lately. And STEM education research, trying to get more African Americans with master’s degrees in STEM disciplines and, of course, to go on and do their Ph.D.s. But, right now STEM education--so I’ve been working with that and still doing AI. So, I work with the artificial intelligence campus here in Arkansas. I’m a board member on the AI campus. I’m also an Arkansas Research Alliance fellow here in the state, so I work on a lot of AI research now. The AI for Bio Project we just recently submitted for funding which was aimed to be a nationwide artificial intelligence campus. Kinda like what we have here in Arkansas; we’re doing an AI campus. And with the AI campus, we have students from all different institutions--HBCUs [historically Black colleges and universities], non HBCUs. And we have coaches; coaches can be from anywhere. Experts in AI. And the students get the benefit of learning from experts in AI. They don’t have to be limited; my students don’t have to be limited to what I do; they don’t have to be limited to bioinformatics. They can learn from other professors. They don’t have to even be limited to what other professors are doing on campus, so they can do projects from another professor on any campus, which makes it great because we get a lot of state-of-the-art projects. Actually, in a recent competition, we placed ahead of Harvard University and some other big-name schools in the AI competition, so AI campus is really doing big things, as far as AI is concerned. And I enjoy being a part of it. Seeing the students get involved and not just learning the basics, but getting involved with state-of-the-art, pushing-the-envelope type science in AI. I think that’s good because, for one, they don’t have to rely on me--which I don’t mind that, but I like to sit back and watch because we have some great coaches from different universities. Yeah. So, a lot of research now is in AI, and I did some research in imaging analysis. So, bioinformatics is a pretty broad area, right?
00:36:51Kregg Quarles: Yeah. Can you tell me more about that, please?
00:36:56Karl Walker: Yeah. Bioinformatics--well, it’s basically bio--so, we deal with biological information. That can be genetics; that could be proteins, of course, protein structure prediction, the protein structures. It can also be imaging like x-rays, PET scans, MRIs…it can be imaging, right? Analyzing these types of biological, medical images. It can also be coming up with new processes for analyzing data. It can be basic--it doesn’t even have to be molecular or imaging data. It can be clinical data; it’s clinical informatics. Just anything that deals with analysis of biological data. And mainly high throughput data, and what we mean by that is too much data for you to do by hand; you need some computational skills and some programmatic know-how to actually handle it, so that’s where it comes in. So, it’s big data, right? Dealing with big data for biologists; I guess you can say that.
00:38:18Kregg Quarles: Yeah, wow. So, kind of rewinding a little bit, when you first got into the bioinformatics program, can you tell me--what was that experience like, you know, getting a master’s degree and then, kind of like, you know…what was that experience like, and what was the path from there to where you are now?
00:38:42Karl Walker: Well…where do I start? Well, I mean, the experience was--it was--I can say it was great. It was a bit of a financial struggle. It was going back to being a quote unquote broke student, I guess, again. It was okay, at first, with my wife still having her income; she became pregnant with my oldest daughter during that time. And so, during the split merger--as I had just went through that with her, they had completed the merger with Verizon. And then a few months before or after--I can’t remember--but it was around a few months before or after my daughter was born, my wife was laid off. They did a lot of cuts because it was a merger, so they had duplicate positions and things like that, so they did a lot of cuts.
00:39:47Kregg Quarles: Yeah.
00:39:49Karl Walker: So, I don’t know if it was the maternity leave; I don’t know what it was, man, but anyway, she ended up getting laid off. That’s a family of four, at that time, living off a graduate student’s salary, so that was a struggle. That was a struggle. But, as far as the research--on the other side, the academics, the academics was great because before I actually settled into my research projects, we did what was called rotations. It was required for you to work in different labs and learn a little bit about the different aspects of different areas in bioinformatics. So, I worked on some cancer research--oh, I did some cancer research projects, too; I did do that. I did a liquid biopsy study, which--I’m jumping ahead. Anyway, so I worked in some cancer research projects over at the Univeristy of Arkansas for Medical Sciences [UAMS], and then I worked in the chemistry department, worked on some physical chemistry with one of the professors there; I really enjoyed that. And then I worked with Dr. Xiuzhen Huang at Arkansas State University. That’s where we were working on protein structure and protein structure prediction, so that’s what really caught my interest because it kinda combined even physical chemistry that I was working on. It didn’t have a lot to do with cancer research, but it was a good fit, like I told you before. So, the transition--I mean, going through school, getting my master’s, it wasn’t bad. Going back to school--it was something I had an appetite for, so going back to class was not a problem. I did pretty good at my studies. Traveling back and forth to Jonesboro, Arkansas, was…it wasn’t bad; it was a two hour drive, but, you know….it is what it is. I went to do research there. That was fun. Really fun. We worked on a lot of good projects; did some plant genomics, did some cancer genomics, and did a lot of different genomics, proteomics. I enjoyed the variety. I mean, you’re talking about, like, academically, or you’re talking…?
00:42:34Kregg Quarles: Well, just--I mean, you’re already telling me. So, what was that kind of brought you joy about that? What was it that you liked about that research? I know that you said you like the combination of biology and the chemistry, but--
00:42:54Karl Walker: And the physics, yeah.
00:42:56Kregg Quarles: And the physics. And since you can kinda have that in several fields, was there anything else other than just it being the chance to use all three subjects together, or…?
00:43:06Karl Walker: Well, it was back to square one. I wanted to do something…I had that passion at an early age to go into medicine with pre-med. So, this is biomedical, so that was another added benefit. I still got to do biomedical research. And, you know, protein structure…I mean, that’s kind of like…that’s the end-all be-all of anything because all human diseases, you can trace back to a protein--some malfunctioning protein. Even cancer, right? All human diseases come back to your proteins in your body; one of them is misfunctioning and not functioning. That’s what disease is, really. It’s grassroots, you know, and it has a strong connection to drug design, right? So, when you’re designing a new drug for a new disease or for an old disease, it helps to know what protein is the culprit, to know what protein is causing the problem, and if you know what protein is causing the problem, how do you manipulate it, right? How do you manipulate it? Can we use a drug to manipulate it? And if you can, then you will find the binding pocket of the protein. In order to find the binding pocket of the protein, you have to know its shape, you know, its structure. And if you know its structure, you can design a molecule that can fit in that pocket, right? You have to design--and that’s drug design. Knowing the structure of the protein--it definitely is a winner for finding a cure to a disease or some therapy--even if it’s just therapeutic--for that disease.
00:45:08Kregg Quarles: Yeah, wow. Okay. Wow. I think I’m gonna jump a little bit. So, since this is a Black excellence in STEM oral history, was there a moment of excellence in your career so far that you can reflect on?
00:45:30Karl Walker: Moment of excellence.
00:45:32Kregg Quarles: Yeah.
00:45:35Karl Walker: Well, I mean, I guess I’ve had several moments. I guess it’s been a growing process, you know. As a student, of course, I got an award, a plaque, for being an outstanding master’s student, and then when I was graduating with my Ph.D., I won an award for one of my presentations I gave at a conference. That was a good--I had no idea, of course, that I was gonna win either award, so it was motivating to say, hey, you’re doing something right, okay? It was motivating. It was motivating to keep pushing a little bit. So, then when I started as a professor, first thing they ask you is: when are you gonna start writing grants? When are you gonna start writing proposals? I was like, you know what, I’ma try my hand at this, try my hand at writing a proposal. I wrote a proposal for a IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence [INBRE] research grant; it was a $50,000 grant. And I got some help with it from some people who’ve written grants before, got some pointers, you know. I’m not afraid to ask for help. If I don’t understand, [I’m asking,] hey, what does it take to win a grant? I wanna know what it’s gonna take to be successful. What does it take? What do they really look for? And I had a lot of good people who could answer that for me, so I asked them, and they let me know, and they helped me to proofread and other things like that. So, anyways, I ended up winning the grant, so that was another moment of excellence, I guess, for me. For me at least. It was $50,000; I guess in the scheme of things, it was a small grant, but to me it was like, wow, it’s $50,000! I can do something with it. And I don’t know how I was able to do what I did with the $50,000 grant. I set up my bioinformatics lab, everything with those funds. Even having some students graduate with their master’s and do some bioinformatics research projects and seeing my students present. For me, that was a moment of excellence. I was like, hey, it’s good; I’ve inspired or helped somebody else, so that was a moment for me. Then my next grant, I did a diversity supplement grant with a professor here in Little Rock at UAMS from his grant. Diversity supplement is like a--they have a grant for junior faculty--that means you’re an assistant professor without tenure--you can apply for, what’s called, a diversity supplement. So, they helped me a lot. Dr. Tackett and Dr. Beneš and a lot of the people from the INBRE, who were from my previous grant, helped me with this next supplement grant. I ended up winning that, and that was maybe about a $120,000 or something like that. So, I’m like, hey, that’s pretty good. I felt, you know--it’s been small victories, man. A lot of small victories. Enjoying the small victories and just letting that motivate you to do something else and give you the confidence to say, hey, you know…don’t let this beat me now, you know? I can do it. And if you’re fighting with the right people in your corner--the right help, it’s definitely achievable. In the same time, my advisors, Dr. Xiuzhen Huang and Dr. Steve Jennings, they gave me some mentorship during and after school, motivating, just letting me know, hey, this the lay of the land; I’ve been here, done that--giving me their wisdom of how they overcame different challenges…and the grantsmanship and things like that. Or even in the professorship, so that’s all helpful. Having people in your corner. It’s going to promote you, push you, and support you. Then, in my next grant I worked on with a group--I was co-principal investigator for a couple of other grants--I have to take a look at my resume; it’s been quite a few. But, one that I’m most proud of is the one I’m currently working with the U.S. Department of Education as a collaboration with some of my other colleagues on campus at UAPB and Dr. Mary Benjamin. She was the Vice Chancellor or Provost at the time when I started writing this grant, and she was very, very helpful. She just kind of took me under her wings like, I’m gonna to help him get him a big grant. She did just that, man. And same thing with Dr. Charles Colen and Anissa Buckner. I was on a grant with them; they had a renewal of the grant that they had had it before, and they renewed it, and I was on the renewal.
00:52:11Kregg Quarles: And what made this program--why is this one the one you’re most proud of?
00:52:18Karl Walker: Well, it’s because even though science and physics and chemistry and bioinformatics and biology and all those things are great, I always still had a passion to be able to help other Black people. Help my people. Help African Americans. It’s good to see--it’s the same thing--I guess, the reason why these programs--help other people see, hey, these can be done. The purpose of the grant was to increase the number of African Americans which are underrepresented in certain STEM areas, right? Vastly underrepresented in a lot of different STEM areas. So, the purpose of the grant is to increase the number of African Americans in those fields. Not only that, computer science education is a field that’s--it’s not totally young. I mean, it’s been around, but I don’t think it’s been as prevalent or as needful as it is now. Like, here in Arkansas, Governor Asa Hutchinson mandated for all the high schools to start teaching computer science, and that was around the time that I started writing this grant. So, in this grant, I even got a letter of support from him for this grant because part of this grant was to create a computer science education master’s program. The first in the state and one of a few in the country. So, not only helping African Americans, but helping the computer science movement, helping other underrepresented minorities. Just increasing computer science because it’s a field that’s in high demand, but we’re pumping out jobs faster than we can pump out graduates, so here in Arkansas alone it’s like fifteen hundred jobs--I’m paraphrasing; I’d have to look back at the numbers--but somewhere around fifteen hundred jobs open, but there’s only three hundred and something graduates a year. And that’s not just Arkansas; it’s like that in a lot of different states. There’s a large divide between the number of professionals we pump out in the schools and the professions or careers that’s available for people to take hold of, so they’re trying to go younger, right? Trying to train them in high school. So, increasing the number of African Americans who get their master’s degrees in STEM areas. And also the fact that I can help them start their career because the grant gave us funding to provide assistantships for students. So, I can see a lot of my students’ lives transform; I can see their lives just totally transform, and that’s a moment that I’m proud of. It was a $2.5 million grant, so it sounds good, but, of course, the work you’re doing with it--you can have $2.5 million, but the work you can do with that--the work we’re doing with it is to help people get their master’s. And I’ve seen a lot of my students--I mean, maybe a couple of years ago, man, we went to the National Society of Black Engineers [NSBE] conference--went to a couple of other conferences--but primarily, a lot of my students got hired, man, right there at NSBE. And we had, I don’t know, a lot of students getting nice, nice, nice salaries. Nice salaries. And that was a moment I was proud of because I know I helped these students through their career, through their college, get their degrees, mentored them, looked over their resume resumes, helped them build their resumes--because they hated my class. They hated my class because I would have them learning like eleven different programming languages. They’d say, I hated your class! But, then when they in their interviews, they was like, well, have you ever done this? Like, well, yeah, we did this in my programming concepts class. Now, tell me about that. And they would tell them about the class; ah, he had us doing this, that, and the other! Kind of complaining. But, they was like, wow, that sounds like a great class! But, see, it prepared them; they hated it, but they came back, and they told me how much, I think, how the class helped them get the job because it gave them some experience with these languages that the company’s looking for, and they liked the fact that they can write in multiple languages. And I was like, well, yeah! I mean, a lot--when I was working, we did a lot of translation work, right? We had to translate from this old system to a new system, so having somebody who can translate--and I was knowing that because I worked in the field--having someone who can read this language and write in this language is valuable! Employers wanna see that, especially if they moving away from like FORTRAN and Pascal and all these old languages--COBOL. I had them even learn COBOL, man. COBOL they say is a dead language, but it’s not that dead. It’s not that dead. Not a lot of schools teach COBOL, but a lot of companies still have old legacy systems using COBOL, and I know that. So, they want people who can either update these old systems or translate these systems into new languages. So, long story short, seeing them land these jobs, man--and I think that year, man, we brought home over $1,000,000 in jobs.
00:58:53Kregg Quarles: Wow!
00:58:54Karl Walker: Yeah. Over $1,000,000 in jobs. So, I’m like, okay. Yeah. The grant money was great, and I appreciate it, and it was beneficial, but, man, you know, being able to produce--and having that many more African Americans or underrepresented minorities being able to have that kind of income for them to build their families and whatever they wanted to do--help their lifestyle change. Their whole lives change, man. That was…that’s why it was what I’m most proud of because of the work I was able to do. I love research, but, man, I don’t know. It’s coming in close, whether I like STEM education better--I don’t know now. I don’t know. I still like research, though, so I still do AI and some other research and try to get some students to do that, too. A lot of them are getting those jobs though and moving on; a few of them still go on to graduate school.
00:59:57Kregg Quarles: Nice. So, speaking of--just a little bit of record keeping--oh, and congratulations, of course, on that. That achievement, I mean. Changing people’s lives that’s--
00:00:09Karl Walker: Yeah, man. I think that’s…yeah. That’s…yeah.
00:00:16Kregg Quarles: So, just for the record, you went to Morehouse College. Where did you go for your master’s and your Ph.D.?
00:00:24Karl Walker: Okay. All right. Yeah, I did my bachelor’s in computer science at Morehouse College, and then I did my master’s and Ph.D. in the joint bioinformatics program at UALR and UAMS--that’s the University of Arkansas, Little Rock and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
00:00:45Kregg Quarles: Okay.
00:00:46Karl Walker: Those were different programs.
00:00:48Kregg Quarles: Right, so it was after that, actually, that you got your job at University of Arkansas, Pine Bluff?
00:00:56Karl Walker: Yeah. Yeah, it was after that.
00:00:59Kregg Quarles: Okay.
00:01:00Karl Walker: Yeah. As faculty.
00:01:02Kregg Quarles: As faculty. Right. Were you recruited, or did you have to try to seek that position?
00:01:09Karl Walker: Well, no, man. This is the funny thing. All right. So, I’m not even sure that my major professor and my Ph.D. advisor knew that I was from Pine Bluff. She may have; I don’t know. I don’t know if we’d ever had that conversation, but one of the things that kind of alludes me to think that she didn’t was because she told me--she was like, yeah, Karl; it’s a good place; it’s a good school. It’s in Pine Bluff, not too far from you. She was explaining this to me, so, I’m like, okay. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t even tell her, hey, yeah, I know about the school; I’m from there; that’s my hometown. I didn’t say anything. So, she had spoke with the computer science coordinator at the time and negotiated the position--not for me to get the position, but for us to talk about the position. So, I went down there, talked to ‘em, and we thought it was a good fit, and I got the job. I worked there that summer before I started working there full time. I taught intelligent assistance, which is like an applied AI class, that summer. I enjoyed it. I didn’t think I was going to enjoy actually becoming a college professor. In the back of my head, I was gonna go work in research somewhere, you know, at some lab, but I actually enjoyed it; it was rewarding to teach students. I love to see them go from confused to aha!, you know? I love that transition.
00:03:02Kregg Quarles: Yeah. I know what you mean.
00:03:04Karl Walker: ‘Cause I’ve been there, as we talked about. Yeah. So, anyway, no. She had no idea; I didn’t pursue the position. You can call it a coincidence; you can call it something else, but…yeah. Ended up there.
00:03:27Kregg Quarles: Wow. Wow, so that was your advisor. What was her name? That advisor?
00:03:31Karl Walker: Xiuzhen. Xiuzhen Huang.
00:03:34Kregg Quarles: How do you spell that?
00:03:35Karl Walker: X-i-u-z-h-e-n.
00:03:40Kregg Quarles: Okay.
00:03:41Karl Walker: H-u-a-n-g.
00:03:44Kregg Quarles: Did you have a lot of…this is probably going to be maybe my last question before I ask is there anything else you would like to share--but what resources did you have, or did you wish you had, that you feel were important for your success? Because you talk about some people were helping you with grants--
00:04:10Karl Walker: Yeah.
00:04:11Kregg Quarles: And you had an advisor. But, overall, what resources do you--when you reflect back, did you have, or did you wish you had, that you think were important for your success?
00:04:25Karl Walker: Well, I think it’s important--I mean, how far back are we going?
00:04:29Kregg Quarles: As far back as you wanna go, okay?
00:04:32Karl Walker: I mean, of course, it’s good to have family support. That’s always good, but outside of that, it’s good to have community support. I’ve had people who were total strangers to me who weren’t--they knew who I was, like I said--helped me out of a lot of problems growing up, troubles I might find myself into even as a youth in high school, middle school, things like that. And just having that community support, you know, somebody that’s invested in your success, and sometimes it’s people you don’t know. They might know you, but you don’t even know them. They wanna see me succeed; they wanna help me out. Just having somebody that’s willing to give you a helping hand--of course, number one. And that can come from anywhere, and that can come from any form. It doesn’t have to be academic. It can be just in the community. And then having, of course, good professors, people to teach you. Good friends to support you and to show you some things you, you can learn from, and even share some things with. Help you learn. Sharpen your own. Man sharpens man; iron sharpens iron, right? That’s how they say. Yeah. So, I think it’s good to have a good support structure. I think that’s what I’m saying in a nutshell. I mean, that can come from your parents, your community, your friends, your professors, your advisors. And post-school, too. After school. Having some advisors and mentors, people that’s willing to help you out. And to not be closed-minded, I think. You know, if I had had a closed mind and said that--I mean, of course, it’s always great to have someone who looks like you to be a mentor, be a motivator, right? Someone who’s had a similar background. But, that’s not always there, right? It’s not always the case. So, not to being closed-minded--like, hey, man, somebody’s willing to help you. Hey, say thank you. You know what I mean? Say thank you. Help can come in different forms, different people from different backgrounds. And I remember I was riding back with one of my mentors, Dr. Steven Jennings. We were riding back from Jonesboro together, and he’s like, look, Karl; I’m never gonna know what it’s like to be Black.You know, he just straight up told me, and I appreciated that. And he was like, but I can help you with this; I can help you with that. I was like, all right; I appreciate it. And that was good because then I know my focus--like, okay, these are the things you can help me with. I don’t know what it’s like to be a Black man in America. I don’t know. I can’t help you with that, but I can help you with grantsmanship; I can help you with scholarship. He told me one time, he was like, I don’t wanna see you being a spoke on the wheel; I want you to be the wheel. I want you to turn this thing. You know, it’s just having people invested in your success and wanna see you succeed. It’s helpful. And the same thing with my major advisor, Xiuzhen Huang. She was like, Karl, you must focus. Focus. Sometimes you just need that motivation, man. Sometimes--like after my father passed away, man--he passed away my last semester of my Ph.D. Half of what I was doing, man was--you know--my older brothers…they were physicians, doctors, and stuff like that. I wanted him to see me become a doctor, you know? So, that made it tough, man. I was like, I don’t even know if--I’m already halfway tired of school and don’t wanna do it, and now it’s like part of my motivation for doing it is gone. I almost quit, but that’s when my advisor, she called me; she was like, Karl--you know, on one side you’re like I just lost my dad, then on the other side, you know, she’s like, hey, you just gotta focus. You need to focus. Keep going. Push. You must focus. On one side, it was not what I really wanted to hear right then. Like, I’m struggling right now. I don’t need to hear, focus on research, and stuff like that; my mindset is on something else right now. But, on the other side, it was something I needed to hear because I know how much he did want me to finish, and how much he was looking forward to me graduating, me finishing my degree. And I could have finished sooner. I kinda beat myself up about that. I went down one of those rabbit holes, man; I started studying other stuff. You research, and you find something that interests you; you start going down that rabbit hole, and I’m like, I’m researching this, but this is totally not related to my dissertation. So, I had to refocus, man. Had to refocus and get it done, get it finished. So, having people to support you and push you--my family, my kids, my wife. Having a different type of motivation for finishing. To provide for my family--can’t live off a graduate student salary anymore. That was motivation, too. If you don’t have the drive, have something that drives you. Either way, you gotta keep it moving.
00:11:47Kregg Quarles: Well, thank you for that. I mean, that’s a powerful ending right there. We’re right at about an hour.
00:11:58Karl Walker: Okay. All right. That’s cool.
00:12:02Kregg Quarles: Is there anything else you would like to share during the interview today?
00:12:08Karl Walker: Man…
00:12:10Kregg Quarles: Anything that you would like--because this record is also going into the future. So, is there anything you would like to say to people in the future who look back at history and look back at you as a story in history?
00:12:32Karl Walker: Well, I really don’t know, man. I’m just thankful for everybody who’s been in my corner, man. All my friends, man. Yourself included, man. I even tell that story to this day about how I was struggling in physics, and I came to your room. And I was like, hey, break this down to me. You broke it down, and I was like, ah; I got it. That was it. Always keep your options open. Never be too ashamed to not know. No shame in not knowing. I think, as my granddad would put it--my dad was…he graduated high school at sixteen. I think he finished college at nineteen. So, he--and my uncle, all these people--my dad, my uncle, my granddad, they all had a mentality that there’s nothing too difficult. There’s nothing too hard that you can’t understand. Now, some stuff is hard. It’s tough, now. I ain’t saying it’s not hard, but it’s just like walking, man. Once you learn how to walk, you like, man, this is easy! Once you’ve learned it. So, never be ashamed to not know because everybody didn’t know at one point; you know what I’m saying? So, never be ashamed to not know. The only shame is to remain ignorant, just to not continue. If there’s something you wanna know, the only shame is in giving up, man. You know, don’t give up. Keep pushing. This is something that you can attain. Sometimes it’s not working harder; sometimes it’s asking somebody who understands it already because they understand it, apparently, better than you do. And you tried reading their book, and, apparently, that person can’t relate to you. So, find somebody else that relates to you and ask them, you know? And maybe that’s the ticket. So, don’t be afraid to not know, and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Pick someone’s brain, and keep it going. Keep it moving. Yeah. That’s it. I don’t know, there’s probably a bunch of stuff--I don’t know--that’s what I came up with.
00:15:21Kregg Quarles: All right. Well, Dr. Walker, I wanna thank you a lot for sharing your personal story.
00:15:29Karl Walker: Yeah.
00:15:31Kregg Quarles: And, you know, if there’s anything else you’d like to add to the interview, feel free to reach out to me afterwards, and we can set up another time to talk.
00:15:44Karl Walker: Okay.
00:15:45Kregg Quarles: Other than that, I’m gonna stop recording now.
00:15:47Karl Walker: Okay. NOTE TRANSCRIPTION END
