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‘Behind the Screens: The People of OIT’ is a series that features the people working hard behind the scenes to make OIT run.
Position: Systems Security Lead
Time spent with OIT: 15 years
It’s hard not to take notice of Drew Stinnett. He’s quick to offer a kind smile and warm greeting. More often than not, he is also sporting a cat shirt cool enough to make you question whether you should start investing in your own collection of feline-themed attire.
Besides his cheerful demeanor and fun style, Drew brings a wealth of knowledge to OIT and helps keep Duke safe through his work.
What he does for OIT:
As the Systems Security Lead, Drew’s work primarily revolves around security for the Windows and Linux teams. He spends most of his time writing tooling (tools and applications that developers use to create and manage software) and working with security tools like Vault—a centrally managed store for secrets such as passwords and security tokens—and automation tools such as Suitcase Control—a program that packages research data more efficiently and affordably.
What he enjoys about working in OIT:
For the past two summers, Drew has served as a Team Lead for the Code+ program, and it’s quickly become his favorite part of his job. Before Code+, Drew didn’t have many opportunities to work with students. When he started working at Duke, family members and friends would ask him if he worked with students or professors. He would answer, “No, we work with the people who work with the professors to do things.”
While he’s always enjoyed it, it hasn’t always felt like he was working at a university. Being involved with Code+ has changed that for Drew.
“I didn’t know any Duke students before two years ago, and now there are around ten or so of them that I’m like, ‘I can’t wait to see what they do and what they are going to do after college,’” Drew said. “Maybe they’ll create some brilliant start-up and change the world, or maybe they won’t, but it’s just nice that it’s a possibility that I have a tiny step in. Helping them along the career ladder has been fun.”
Along with Code+, Drew enjoys serving on the DiversifyIT Steering Committee. Being involved with the group has been an eye-opening experience that has led to his personal growth.
“It feels like you’re contributing just a little bit to make things better,” Drew said. “I really like that, and I found that rewarding.”
Advice for those new to OIT:
Along with his work with Code+ and DiversifyIT, Drew appreciates that being in OIT affords him opportunities to work with many different people who broaden his horizons. He encourages those new to OIT to not be afraid to talk to new people.
“I think you get a richer work experience if you talk with people outside of your group, especially after COVID since we don’t have those water cooler chats anymore,” Drew said. “Make an effort to reach out to other groups because often, other groups aren’t going to reach out to you because everybody is doing their own thing. So just be friendly and reach out.”
What he hopes to accomplish:
When Drew is writing tooling, he enjoys that he gets to build useful things for the IT community. One of his goals is to continue making tools that help make others’ lives easier.
Another thing he hopes to accomplish is to pivot more to artificial intelligence (AI) to better understand it and work with it.
“Our Code+ group did an AI project, and keeping up with them and their AI knowledge was very hard,” Drew said. “There are so many pieces that go underneath [developing a chat bot] that make all that glue together, and I feel like I got to see all those pieces in Code+.”
Working on this AI project for Code+ also revitalized one of Drew’s dream projects.
“I keep a lot of data and documentation on stuff that I have done, and I guess my dream project was to turn that into a robot or a ChatGPT thing,” Drew said. “But it could be based on stuff that I’ve done, stuff that my group has done, our wiki, and all that documentation to make a cool chatbot or assistant.”
This idea appeals to Drew, because he thinks it would be helpful to have an objective and automated way of accessing his past work—or his digital persona—to answer questions, review previous tasks, assist others, and build upon what he’s already done.
To Drew, this idea always seemed like a pipe dream until technology like ChatGPT emerged. This rise in AI, along with the work he did with his Code+ students, made this seem within reach.
Tech he couldn’t live without:
While Drew interacts with a wide variety of technology in his work and lifestyle, he’s become quite the fan of the Go, an open-source programming language.
“It’s a programming language that makes it very easy to distribute your programs to different groups,” Drew said. “With Go, it builds all your dependencies into a single binary, so… you can get it all into one package and send it out. That makes giving people tools to do things easier because I can say, ‘Hey, download this binary file and run it,’ versus having a specific version of whatever program. I feel like it’s made distributing tools 100 times easier.”
What he’s doing when he’s not at work:
Even when he’s not writing tooling, leading his Code+ students, or planning the next best thing in AI, Drew stays busy outside of work.
As a big movie buff, he will sometimes watch two a day. Babylon is an all-time favorite. He especially enjoys horror films and has likely watched every horror movie made no matter how niche the movie is, whether it be VelociPastor, Thankskilling, or Clownado.
Drew also spends his time co-hosting the ‘Imminent Teachnology’ podcast and is one of the producers of the ‘We Belong Dead’ podcast. Drew and his wife, Lela, have also been taking a Bollywood dance class for the past couple of years.
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And anyone who really knows Drew will know that he loves his cats, Milo and Taron. When he started working at home during the Coronavirus pandemic, he began to really appreciate his cats and felt like they positively impacted his mental health.
“Now, I can be working, and this cat is going to come up and hang out with me while I’m doing stuff,” Drew said.
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A fun fact about Drew:
Originally a theater major, Drew used to do a lot of acting. In 1999, he landed a small role in a crime re-enactment show called The New Detectives.
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Know someone in OIT with a story worth sharing? Nominate them (or yourself!) by emailing kaylee.wilkinson@duke.edu.