MapVault: Future-Proofing My Polarsteps Journal

⚡ The Problem & Why It Mattered To Me I spent my yearlong travel sabbatical using Polarsteps to journal my thoughts, photos and location each day. When I got back, I wanted to keep those memories safe in a format I could still open 10, 20, 30 years from now. Most apps don’t last that long. So I requested my data from Polarsteps. What I got were JSON files, packed with deeply nested lists that were anything but user-friendly. That’s when I decided to write this script, to pull out the journal entries and turn them into something more usable. And of course, I went the little extra mile to plot the countries I travelled to on a map 😊. ...

May 21, 2025 · 2 min

About Me

Hi There, I’m a professional hobbyist who can rarely sit still! A friend challenged me to create this portfolio site while I was learning to program during a sabbatical, so here we are. I code to make life easier. The swimming pool near me is always busy, so I built a small app to figure out the quietest times. As a frequent traveler, I created a dashboard to map out where I and all my money went during my gap year. And as a biologist following clinical trials for a disease close to my heart, I wrote a script to track updates so I don’t have to scroll endlessly through registry pages. Professionally, I’ve followed a nonstandard career path that occasionally earns me a raised eyebrow or two. I hold a PhD in one of my favorite subjects, infectious diseases, and have worked in both biotech startups and big pharma. Instead of staying on the conveyor belt, I took a step back, believing that in a 40 plus year career, a year or two off is an investment, not a detour. So I travelled to far flung corners of the world, hoping to tick off my bucket list, only to find it getting longer with each stop. As time goes on, the voice nudging me toward programming keeps getting louder. So, as part of this sabbatical, I took on yet another hobby, coding, and the deeper I go, the more I want to bridge the worlds of biology and software. Hence this site: a public notebook, a playground, and proof that even a biologist in her 30s can learn to code. If something here sparks your interest, feel free to get in touch!

May 19, 2025 · 2 min