What are some of the jobs one can think of, that are at the intersection of Computer Programming and the Exploration of the Natural world?

Computer Programming is essentially an attempt to model real world processes and entities in a form that computers can understand. So don't feel as if you are missing out on the natural world by being a computer programmer, instead look at how you are trying to model the real world in your computer programs. That said, one very buzzing industry is biotechnology, in which we attempt to use living organisms such as bacteria and mold to produce useful products or optimize processes. I can't seem to find the article now, but one report mentioned they were close to producing a bacteria that gave off electricity at a steady rate, and that could be set to reproduce at a rate that the flow off electricity would be virtually infinite. I wouldn't complain if my legacy were infinite, clean electricity. There's also nanotechnology. The development of very tiny(smaller than the eye can see) machines that can be taken intravenously and can do some things as simple as take pictures, and collect data. may eventually do more advanced things like eliminate other unwanted materials in the bloodstream, and fight cancer cells. http://www.understandingnano.com/cancer-treatment-nanotechnology.html

Computational biology would be a good crossover between computing and biology  http://www.ploscompbiol.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_biology

My major is computational physics and it is the intersection between the laws of the universe and programming. We use matlab now but oldschoolers still use C++ and python

Any area of research that involves deep and unique statistical analysis.