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Okay, I've started the recording. So I'm David Caruso. I'm here with Kenny Evans, we're conducting an interview with Dr. Barbara Schaal as part of our President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology Project.

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Today is May 26, 2022, and we're conducting this interview via Zoom. So I know Dr. Schaal, you were born in 1947 in Berlin, Germany. My first question for you is, were you in East or West Germany when you were born? So I was born in West Germany, probably very close to the border between East Germany.

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And of course, when I was born, and even the early part of it, there wasn't such a large barrier between East and West Berlin. That came a little bit later. And so I've had relatives that were in East Berlin and in East Germany.

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Okay. And can you tell me a little bit about what your parents were doing in Germany? Were they born and raised there? Did they migrate there?

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Yeah, so my family has a long history being a German. My father was born in Berlin, actually in the same house that my mother was born in, the one that I was born in. My grandfather was an architect, and he was able to develop a way of building these apartment

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houses on a very sandy soil. And so that actually, for my mother, that actually provided finances for the family. Her father died very early when she was quite young, and that family was supported by the rent from these apartment buildings.

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And one of the renters was ultimately my father and his family. And what did your father do? Well, he was, for a long time, a soldier in the German army, because he was drafted as everybody was of that age, because he was a young man, and had tremendous resentment

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of that, because he felt like he lost a big chunk of his life. And after the war, then Berlin was really decimated. And so he just worked on odd jobs as whatever he could get ahold of. And I think they were probably, I think we'd call it a gig economy now.

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So that was what he did. He worked a lot with motorcycles and cars and fixing them, and that turned out to be something that he ended up doing throughout his life, was working with cars and rebuilding brakes and stuff like that.

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So he was basically a mechanic, mechanic. And yeah, that was what he did. And was your mother also working at the time? No, she's very traditional German housewife.

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And so she was a young girl during the war. And I think the war has completely shaped my parents and everybody who was in that because their lives were disrupted, people were killed, the apartment house was bombed, you know, all those sorts of things.

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So she was during the war as a young girl sent to orchards to help pick fruit during the war. And so that was what she did. And then after the war, they all worked their way back to Berlin. And then very quickly, they were married and had me.

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So they knew each other prior to or knew that you knew each other? I think they did. But there's about a 12 year age difference. And so I think, I mean, there's these stories of my mother spitting on my father's head

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because she was a nasty little girl or something like that. I don't know if that's true. One of the things that's really interesting about these stories from families, and I'm sure you've heard this, is they get embellished throughout the years.

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And so it's very hard to know what really happened. But they do become sort of these legends in the family. So you were born in 47. I know that you became a US citizen in 56.

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Were you raised predominantly in Germany up to that point? Or did your family leave? No, we immigrated in 1950. And it's really, to me, this is really interesting because they my my dad's family

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had relatives here in Chicago, both his father and no, actually, not his father. His father was still in Germany. His brother was was in Chicago. So they, the young family, they were sponsored by my uncle to come to the United States.

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So they went across. We went across the Atlantic Ocean on a converted troop carrier. And, you know, one one deck was for the men and the other deck was for the women and children. And I think it was pretty rough, pretty rough crossing, because it was wintertime in the Atlantic.

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And they they came along with me in two suitcases. And so arrived in the United States, basically almost penniless, because they needed to to buy things on the ship in order to to make things a little more comfortable. And so then after landing in New York and going through immigration,

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they then got on a train and took a I think an overnight train ride to Chicago and were then met by met by my uncle and his wife. Given your age, I'm assuming you don't actually have memories from your time in Germany or even the you know, memories are funny things.

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And I sure, based on what psychologists tell us, I have these memories, some very like like vignettes. And I don't know if they're true or not, or if it's something that was introduced as a as a memory. One of my friends is Liz, Elizabeth Loftos, and she deals with false memory.

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So I'm a little bit careful with those sorts of things. I do remember being on the ship and and and on the train ride and then very clear memories of once we arrived in Chicago. OK, did your parents speak English before migrating?

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No, OK, so only German or any other languages that they know German. Well, you know, actually, I don't know if they spoke any other languages because it was so common in Europe. Good question.

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OK, and the family that your father's family that was in Chicago, what part of Chicago were they in the city itself or one of the suburbs? It was one of the suburbs, Skokie, Skokie, Illinois, and my uncle, my dad's side of the family before the war was involved in the hospitality business.

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My grandfather worked at the Adlin Hotel, which is this really famous hotel in Berlin close to the Brandenburg Gate. And so he worked there and he apparently for a while was a cheese buyer and would go to France and buy cheese for the hotel.

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You know, again, this is what I've been told. Not sure we can verify that. And so my uncle was also kind of in the hotel business, but he was the chief bartender at the Ritz Carlton in downtown Chicago,

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which was a really, really fashionable place to be at that time. So so that was what he did. And he looked just like Humphrey Bogart, so it was apparently quite a scene. So you you pretty much grew up in Skokie?

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No, we stayed with them for a little while until they found an apartment and it was an basement apartment in in Chicago. OK, so you so roughly what year was that, would you say? That was probably 19.

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I mean, 1950, I'm sure, because it was that was my uncle had a small house and and they wanted to get out as soon as possible. I mean, just just because it's crowded living conditions and you don't want to. What is it like fish and guests are smell after three days or so?

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All right, so you were in Chicago itself. You were roughly three years old at this point in time. Do you have any early recollections of what life was like in Chicago at that time? And, you know, obviously beyond just your your three years of age.

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But what were some of your earliest memories of being in the United States? Maybe exploring the city, things like that. So I remember quite a bit from there was a couple of different residents that we had.

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Ultimately, we ended up in the same apartment building as my grandfather. But I remember very strongly playing with children and really enjoying that. Apparently, I was learning English by starting to play with the kids, although I was currently

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insistent sometimes on calling things German names and trying to get the other kids to call them the German names, which was not a good thing. Because we just, you know, Germany had lost the war and being German wasn't a great thing to be at that time.

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But I do remember that. I remember going to school and and liking school. And remember playing in the playground? I really loved that playing tetherball.

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And then when we moved to where my grandparents were, it was we developed I had friends there. I remember that really good friends and we'd run around. And there were some commercial buildings.

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And so we'd go through their trash and collect all of this really cool stuff. One was like a card manufacturing place. So we had shiny things to play with and played a lot of street games and roller skating and street baseball and things like that.

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Did you actually call it stickball or did you call it street baseball? I'm from New York City, so we used to call it we call it we call it baseball. OK, OK, we call it baseball. And so lots of lots of lots of stuff like that.

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And then when we moved to my parents had the American dream, they bought a house in 1956 and really, really thrilled with that. That was a huge thing for our family. And it's a little suburb called Bellwood and blue collar.

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Everybody worked. There were lots of kids and it was sort of like this American upraising once we dream when once we got there. They we lots of games, lots of lots of you know, in those days,

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kids played outside. And so on Saturday morning, everybody would just run out of the house. And then we just did all of these games. So lots of bicycle riding and roller skating and playing baseball

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and catch and stuff like that. So it was a really very, very active childhood, a lot of physical things. I remember one one thing that that probably is seminal for me when I was in inner city Chicago and I went to Audubon School,

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we had a teacher that allowed us to grow something. And so I was able to it was just like one thing as a tray of soil. And we put bean seedlings into this. And I remember being just amazed that you took the seed and you put it in the soil

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and there were these plants. And so I got to take those plants home. And I think that was the beginning of being really interested in plants was in this teacher in inner city Chicago, giving me a tray of bean seedlings.

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And so this is while you're still relatively young, like maybe first, second, third grade, yeah, probably second grade, second grade. So your parents didn't speak English when they came to the country. Were they taking classes to learn the language?

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No, no, so it's just something they were picking up on their own. OK, this is very different. I mean, now when when somebody comes in from a different country, there are classes, I'm not sure there even were any at that time.

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It was much more just getting thrown in the middle of something and adapting. And my parents were so grateful to be in the United States because Berlin was in terrible shape. It was completely bombed out in many areas and no opportunity for employment.

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There were their stories of when I was a kid, I had ear infections. And so my dad rode a bicycle around trying to find some medicine for my ear infections. You know, these these stories that that are hard to imagine. I mean, I can't imagine that because I don't remember those times like that.

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So anyway, the American Dream, it was it was it was they were very, very happy. And my mother spoke English fairly well. My dad was OK with it, but still had some trouble with it. I mean, he never he was older.

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And so he it was a little harder for him, I think. And that's my line of question was actually coming to that. I was curious to know whether or not you as a as a young child picked up English faster than your parents.

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And if so, then did you have to serve as a translator? I picked it up really fast, apparently. I probably on occasion did as a translator. But my mother picked it up pretty quickly,

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although both my parents always spoke with accents. OK. Do you remember from a young age, given that you were in the United States not too long after the end of the war, was did you ever feel resentment from anyone that you met in Chicago

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for being German from coming from Germany? Was there any sort of lingering? Like I said, resentment or how hostility because of the war? Yeah, there was that at that time, that being German was not a good thing.

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And so I always felt somewhat like I felt that I wasn't part of the that I was different, that I wasn't part of what the American kids were. I was always different. Um, there were there were some occasions where people called me names

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like a Nazi and or a DP. And I didn't know what a DP was, displaced person. So so there was some of that. And that lingered, I would say, throughout grade school and a little bit into high school.

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Um, you know, it's one of these things if it's good for you, if it doesn't kill you. Um, and I think for me, it was really important, ultimately, to know that I was different because then wanting to go into science at that time, that was not what most most girls did, but I was different.

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And so it was sort of comfortable to do that in a way. And so I think, you know, the the the tray of being seedlings and being German at a time when it wasn't the best thing to be was probably helpful, ultimately.

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Although, you know, there were times when it was not fun. It's kind of not not fun to be the other when you're growing up. And so life in Bellwood, you said, was relatively normal in terms of you're doing normal kid things, playing outside,

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baseball, whatever else was going on. Um, you know, I know that you became a citizen in 56. Was that something that you were you enrolled in classes to become a citizen? Was it just that your parents were becoming citizens

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and you became a citizen as their child? Yeah, it was. So my parents became citizens and then I automatically became a citizen. My parents coming from Germany and there was no paperwork to show that I was a citizen.

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My parents coming from Germany and Nazi Germany were papers were really, really important, really important. Made me go through and get naturalization papers myself. And it's a different kind of form, which I didn't realize

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until I had to go through a security clearance. And so at that point, it was through a court and they're in in Chicago. And actually, I still remember this, the judge asked me a whole bunch of questions, but I'd been in school.

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I didn't know there was going to be questions, but I'd been in school. So it was easy enough to answer. But that was in 56. And it turns out that I'm really, really grateful that my parents were paranoid

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because there's been a couple of cases. We've seen them in St. Louis, where people were in analogous situations to me, where they were an immigrant, very, very young. They speak, you know, English without an accent.

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They've really never lived except in a very small as a small child in another country. And they don't have that paper and they get ins comes and they get deported. And then it was also very useful because I had documents when I had to go to go through all of the paperwork to get a security clearance.

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So that was very, very useful. And I was really grateful ultimately to my parents for making me do that. Do you call at the time, if you felt that there was significance to going through that process, were you, you know, did you, do you have some sort of party afterwards now

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I'm an American citizen, or was it just kind of, you grew up here. So it wasn't, yeah, yeah, I was, I was 1956. So yeah, I was nine years old. And I think I didn't realize the magnitude, you know, what that really meant.

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But yeah, my parents went and tried to be citizens as soon as they could. I know that not soon after was also Sputnik, right. That was 1957-19, I'm blanking on the specific date. But it was not long after your citizenship that Russia had launched Sputnik in space.

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People were afraid of what that meant, right, hearing that beeping noise, satellites flying overhead. This was also the period of time where you could kind of date this to the beginning of the Cold War. I'm wondering if at that age you had an understanding of the significance of what Sputnik was.

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Did your family respond to it? Did people in your community respond to that? Yeah, I think it was a really big deal, particularly in school. I remember that talking about it in school.

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And I think my parents were much more sanguine about it. My parents basically were, we made it, we came to the United States, and now we're just going to live here and go on with our lives. I think they were in general very non-political.

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They just wanted to be an American. That was just the driving factor. My brother was born a couple of years after they immigrated here, and he was like a normal kid, where when there's two languages in a household,

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both English and German, he ended up taking a long time to learn to speak. And at that time, nobody really cherished the idea that having two languages was a great thing. My parents wanted him to hurry up, speak English, and don't speak German. So he spoke only English.

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My first language is German, spoke German, I think, really, till I probably started first grade, with some English in there, obviously, but lots and lots of German. It's interesting to me, the language issue, because sometimes I still,

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I don't speak with an accent, but every once in a while, I have some difficulty in particularly pronouncing names that have Vs and Ws. That seems to trip me up. And I learned just like two years ago that that's a well-known phenomenon,

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L1, L2 interference, where even though you don't speak that language routinely, it's still stuck in your brain. And I think that also has influence. For me, writing was very difficult, and it was learnable.

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I've learned, obviously, but that was the challenge. And so there was kind of these language consequences that drifted on, even when I started speaking English all the time. But I wasn't particularly great at school.

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When I was in Chicago, the inner city, I barely passed first grade, and I barely passed second grade. I was on all conditional passes. And of course, now we know I was speaking two languages,

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and English wasn't my first language. So of course, I wasn't going to do well. But I always thought I was stupid because I just had so much trouble with the language. I don't think I was really bad, but it wasn't the same as somebody

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who didn't have an alternate first language. And in those days, nobody made any accommodation for that. Can you tell me, so you mentioned this one teacher who had you grow some beans and you became interested in plants at that point in time.

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Do you recall generally what science education was like for you in, let's just say, in elementary through middle school? Because I know the United States was heavily invested in scientific education. There was still definitely, or at the time, there was certainly a bias towards

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male students over female students. I'm wondering if you have any recollections of what science education was like for you in those early years. It was interesting because you started, with hindsight now,

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I realize that they started to pull kids out into separate classes. So I was in, I believe it was, actually it was my freshman year in high school. I was in an algebra class that was experimental, and it was super fun. I mean, I just loved it, but that was a group of kids.

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There was lots of males and a few females. So I was one of the girls in that class. In junior high, we had science, just general science class. And I remember really loving that.

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And I also remember doing really well. I remember the teacher being surprised. Same thing with middle school, we had some kind of testing. You know, and I didn't know anything about testing

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and didn't pay any attention to it. But one of the teachers came up to me and said that I did really well in science in one of these standardized tests. But it never really sunk in that, I remember loving science,

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but it never sunk in that this was something that I was actually good at. It just didn't sink in. You mentioned that your family was, your parents were very interested. They weren't political, but they were interested in the American dream

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seeing, you know, having opportunity growth development. When you were young, were you receiving any encouragement from your parents about what it is they wanted you to do later in life? Were they, you know, at this point in time,

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I know there are still a number of universities in the United States that did not allow women to enter their undergraduate programs. Right. So it wasn't necessarily assumed at this time that women would actually go on to achieve a college degree or things like that.

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I'm wondering if you were receiving any guidance or push from your parents about what it is they wanted to see you doing in terms of fulfilling that American dream. I think there was a strong expectation that I would finish high school, find somebody, marry, and then have a family.

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I think that was the expectation of my family. Okay. A couple of other questions to be on my asking about your home life during this period of time. Were there things that your family did discuss? You know, if they weren't interested in politics, were they talking about,

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was religion an important component of your upbringing? Was your father, I don't know, talking about, you mentioned that he worked on cars and things like that. Was he talking about mechanical principles or how engines were working or anything like that? What was the general discussion like around the house when you weren't in school?

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That's a very interesting question. It does bring back a memory. So we were religious, Protestant. So that we went to church, I went to Sunday school, I sang in the choir, all of those sorts of things, confirmed and everything else. In terms of home life, my dad was very interested in mechanical things and we would have these,

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the stories that he would tell us because he spent all of his time fixing cars and was in the war and stuff. So there's a lot of things that he missed, but the stories that he would tell us was the story of mining coal and the story of the internal combustion engine. Those were the stories that he told. So that was interesting. With hindsight, it's interesting because that,

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of course, brings a very different kind of information and knowledge and topics to a family. Yeah. Did your father ever speak about his war experiences as time as a farmer? War? No. I think deeply traumatizing and he was shot in the war. So we all knew that he had a scar from a bullet going through his leg, but no, absolutely not. Did your mom talk about the

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difficulties of life on the home front during the war? Yes, she did. She did talk about that. What would she say to you? Well, she would just talk about mainly after the war when the Russians came, which is kind of apropos now, talking. She said one of the things that happened is the Russians came to the apartment building and they were looting and my grandmother and her two daughters,

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my mom and my aunt, they were young, like 1824 or something like that and hiding them so that the Russian soldiers wouldn't see that there were young women there. And my mom talks about there was this one room, kind of a kitchen room, and it had a trap door to go down to another room. And so my grandmother put a rug over the trap door and a big chest on top of that. And my mother

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remembers hearing the Russian soldiers going through the chest and pulling stuff out. So, yeah, and she talked about having to pick peaches when she was sent out into the countryside to help with the fields. Now, the 1960s was also, I mean, it was a very turbulent time for the U.S., generally, the Civil Rights Movement, Kennedy's assassination, Cuban Missile Crisis. There is

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a lot of stuff that was going on. Did your parents ever express opinions about those aspects of American life or were they really just, we're not discussing politics, we're not. No, no, they were concerned about the Cold War. They were very concerned about war coming to the United States because war came to Germany. And so that was a real issue. And they would talk

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about plans, you know, what would happen if war came, what we would do, where we would meet, you know, those kinds of things. So they were concerned about that. And I think particularly with the Cuban Missile Crisis. And then as they became more comfortable, I remember with the Kennedy Nixon election, that was something that they talked about.

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And do you recall who they were for? Nixon. Nixon. Okay. Did you have any other, any sorts of hobbies as a kid? Were you playing instruments? Did you have a fascination with Victorian literature? I'm just pulling at things. Chemistry set or, you know, other things that you did, other than playing with friends and stuff

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like that? I read voraciously. I read in the summertime, maybe, maybe five to 10 books a week, just really read a lot. I had a chemistry set and I survived. I mean, I can't believe that we had chemistry sets with all those explosions and stuff. And that was, that was super fun. I was, I went to, to like day camp and it was out in the countryside, you know, like in, at a forest

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preserve. And I remember really loving being outside like that. And that's something that has persisted. I was a competitive swimmer in high school, not, not very good. It was just a local park, but that, that was important. There's something else that it'll come. Okay. Yeah, if it comes, if you remember later, we can always come back to that. Oh, yes. Here's what it is. How could I

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forget this? I, there was a woman that lived down the street, an elderly, I thought she was really old. She was probably about 50. And she collected cactus. And so I would always go meet with her and I'd visit with her. And then I started to have a big cactus collection of my own. And that was super fun as well. So really, this very big interest in plants, right?

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That was persistent. Okay. You entered high school in 1961. Is that okay? What was your high school experience like for you? What were the, what classes were you taking? Were you developing interests in other areas where you, I don't know, did you, did you read Gibbons decline and fall of the Roman Empire and fall in love with Roman history? What were your classes like,

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what you're taking, what were your interests in high school? So I, my interests in high school were science. I took a biology class and it was like I was in heaven. I absolutely adored it. And the instructor was very, I think he was just amazed at somebody actually like biology, but he would let it, he let me, for example, not do what the class was, but to do other stuff.

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So that was really interesting. I got a microscope of my own at that point and was doing these hay infusions and looking at all kinds of protozoans and stuff from, from just, I'd go out and collect the slimy water and look at what was in it. I liked chemistry a lot. I thought it was easy, but it was interesting. Adored physics, physics was

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really super fun. And what else did I like? I liked social sciences a lot. And I had a fantastic literature class. And when I was a senior, it was, I think college prep literature. And it was like the best teachers in high school. And we read, you know, just all of the classics. And we did a lot of writing and the bar was really high on the writing. That was, that was a very,

00:32:00.840 - 00:32:23.640

very important and really good class. So lots of Shakespeare and American literature, just all kinds of stuff. And it was again, part of this of pulling some kids aside that were potentially going to college. Although I certainly hadn't made that decision at all. But that was, I think, I think they just put me in that class. I don't know how that was done. Okay. And when you weren't in school,

00:32:23.640 - 00:32:48.440

what were you doing? A lot of horseback riding. I was, I always loved horses and my parents gave me riding lessons. You know, they were really cheap at that time. So I did that and had friends come through that. And so there were places around in Bellwood that you were able to do? No, you had to drive out, but it was like maybe a 20 minute drive. Once a week, I'd take a riding lesson.

00:32:51.000 - 00:33:11.400

Now, as you're progressing through high school, are you starting, I mean, made reference to this just a moment ago, but are you starting to think at all about what's going to be next? You mentioned your parents were probably assuming that you were just going to get married and start a family or something like that. But were you thinking differently? And if so, how? I think I certainly

00:33:11.400 - 00:33:34.680

didn't think there was a career for me in science. When I was in high school, I thought because I liked being outdoors so much, I thought being a park ranger would be really good. I mean, just a career in science was not something that seemed possible. And going on, I think it was sort of like, when I was a senior, you kind of had to do something afterwards. And so I think

00:33:34.680 - 00:33:59.960

because so many of my friends were going to college, I applied to a couple of places. And I think all of us were really pretty naive because we're all, the neighborhood that the high school drew from was very uniform in terms of socioeconomic things. And so kids were going to University of Illinois, there was some kids that actually went to a university and lived in dorms

00:33:59.960 - 00:34:26.280

and stuff like that. That was not what many of what we did. I went to the University of Illinois, Chicago, and wasn't sure that I would like it. It was just, you know, I have to do something, let me try this. And so obviously, I liked it because I haven't left the university. So yeah, it was, but it was just to try it out. And my parents goal was maybe I would go there for

00:34:26.520 - 00:34:54.600

two, I mean, I still remember this, but go there for two years, find somebody who's going to be a doctor and get married and then have those kids. Okay. You mentioned that your mother was a traditional housewife, your father was working on cars. Were there financial considerations for you to go to college, right? I don't know what tuition was like at University of Illinois,

00:34:54.600 - 00:35:18.280

Chicago at that period of time. I don't know how. $99 for a quarter and there were three quarters, about $300. I still remember 99. So there's no way that I could have gone away to school, though we did not have the money for that. And in fact, I provided all the money for tuition and books because I work part time. What were you doing? What were you? Well,

00:35:18.920 - 00:35:41.720

first I worked at a Burger King making whoppers, which I am very, very good at. And after working there, I mean, I think it took me like a decade before I'd have a whopper. But it was an interesting experience because one, you get to work with a bunch of people and you see just personalities, how they're different, how some people are great workers and

00:35:41.720 - 00:36:07.560

other people are just sliding by. And so it was really interesting. And also it made it really clear that I did not want a career in the fast food industry. So it was a stimulus to really continue taking those classes at UIC. And you were commuting there? Yes. At first taking the bus and the L, the subway, and then ultimately,

00:36:08.120 - 00:36:35.800

as a graduation present, my parents bought me a used car. So I would, yeah, economically, I think the family was in better shape at that point. And then I worked as a lab tech, just an undergraduate assistant in a lab. And that was really transformative as well. I had taken a course at UIC on plant evolution. And absolutely loved it. And I was taking all

00:36:35.800 - 00:36:59.480

of these courses in biology and really, really enjoyed them. I mean, for me, one of the most seminal things was, again, I wasn't sure. I should have known better, but I didn't think I was particularly bright. And I wasn't sure that I was going to be able to do well in college. And for me, a really seminal event was at this introductory biology course, we had the first

00:36:59.480 - 00:37:24.520

exam. And I mean, I killed it. I set the curve by many, many points. And that was the first time I realized that biology was a good thing and that I could do well in it. And so that led to being a bio major and taking a lot of classes and really, really enjoying it. So when you enter the university, do you recall what classes you signed up for? How many credits

00:37:24.520 - 00:37:50.680

you were taking that first quarter? Full load. I think I was taking biology, math, chemistry, and probably, I think an anthropology course. Okay. So science and social science classes. Yeah. And then I had to do literature. I was also taking a language, German. So when you were taking German, I guess I didn't fully follow up on this. You mentioned that your

00:37:50.680 - 00:38:16.200

parents really wanted, especially your brother, just to speak English. Does that mean that your family wouldn't speak German around the house? Correct. Okay. So when you were taking German in college, had you lost a bit of your ability to speak the language? I don't think so. I think the problem with my German was it basically stopped at six years old. And so I spoke like a

00:38:16.200 - 00:38:39.800

six year old child. Okay. And when you're taking German, I mean, the German grammar is something else. And so when you take it in college, you're doing a lot of grammar. And it's much less speaking. I think that that has changed, obviously, although our son was a German major at WashU. And he also learned grammar, but there was a lot more of speaking and cultural sorts of things.

00:38:39.800 - 00:39:07.880

But in those days, it was you were in German class and you were going to start reading German literature. Okay. In those first classes that you were taking, specifically the science classes, do you remember the the gender makeup of those classes? Was it 5050? Was there were there? It was it was I think it was more like maybe 6040s, 7030s, something like that. Okay. Like that.

00:39:07.960 - 00:39:33.240

The more male students? More male students, yeah, because those were all pre-med classes. Most of the pre-meds were bio majors. Okay. And the faculty in those departments, were they predominantly male? Was it a mixture of female? This is interesting. It the UIC was unusual at that time. My anthropology teacher was an African American, which is very unusual. And there were a number of women faculty

00:39:33.240 - 00:40:01.000

members, the predominantly men, but but they were probably at least seven or eight women faculty members, which is just extraordinarily unusual. I mean, my first job at my job at the at Ohio State University, I was the first woman tenure track faculty in that department. There was a college of biological science with I remember the numbers because I love numbers, 110 faculty members,

00:40:01.000 - 00:40:24.680

and there were actually three women that were tenure track faculty. And one of them got into it just because of her husband. So they had actually hired two women. And I was one of them. And the other one was in the cell molecular biology. So it so you I see was very unusual, very unusual. And I'm sure, you know, I wasn't cognizant, but I'm sure that really influenced

00:40:24.680 - 00:40:56.120

me because here I could see women that were professors. Right. So what were the other classes that you went up taking that first year? I can't remember them exactly. I also took literature classes, which I found that I was not particularly good at. And I do. And I remember reading some of these and and looking at the symbolism and everything and and being sort of confounded by

00:40:56.120 - 00:41:22.120

this because if you want to if you want to convey that this person is psychotic, why can't you just say that? You know, I mean, I just didn't think that way. On the other hand, I took one literature class. I had a really good instructor, a woman. And we were half we had to analyze essays. And so I did an analysis of Tyler D. Shardens and compared it to science. And anyway, so I just

00:41:22.120 - 00:41:51.320

did that. And and I got a lot of really positive feedback on that. So that was I do remember that I remember being really bored by philosophy. Oh, my gosh. Again, why don't you just say it? So as you're as you're taking these courses, I know it's your first year clearly like doing the science classes, you initially were saying, well, you know, maybe I'll do courses for a couple of

00:41:51.320 - 00:42:14.360

years or your parents were thinking like you'd meet someone who is going to be a doctor after a couple of years. While you're getting this college education, are you starting to now think differently about what the future might hold for you, what your next step might be in terms of growth development career? Yeah, I thought that for a long time that after

00:42:14.360 - 00:42:36.120

getting a degree that I would work for one of the companies in Chicago, like Abbott labs or something like that, in a laboratory, being a laboratory assistant. Because that was I had so many lab courses. And so I was really trained in doing laboratory things, particularly after a while, I gave up the Burger King job. And then I worked as a lab assistant. So I was doing a lot

00:42:36.120 - 00:43:04.680

of stuff, actually, basic research and ended up getting publications when I was an undergraduate. Again, I didn't realize it was unusual. Whose lab were you in for as this guy's name, Don Levin, he's still a faculty member at the University of Texas. And I ended up being his graduate student, which is another story. So what what drew you to Dr. Levin's lab was the

00:43:04.680 - 00:43:29.960

advertising for a lab tech and you just you saw the job. He taught this course that I really loved on plant evolution. Okay. And it turns out that that that's what my expertise is in this plant evolution. So it was this undergraduate class, and it was this beautiful textbook, it was written by Vern Grant, called anyway, so so so that really that really focused what my interests were as an

00:43:29.960 - 00:43:57.960

undergrad. So I ended up working in his lab and doing a lot of research and really contributing to a number of different projects. So by the time I was in grad school, I had I think three or four publications, which is, again, unusual. In Levin's lab, was the UIC, did it have graduate students there? Yeah, they did. It was just starting the graduate program. The UIC, the new campus

00:43:57.960 - 00:44:24.200

opened up in 1965. And that was when I was a freshman. So I was in the first class that spent all four years there. Okay. And so did Levin have graduate students in his lab? He had one or two master students. Okay. Were there other undergraduates in his lab? There were that this point, there was a big laboratory, and there's also an ecologist,

00:44:24.200 - 00:44:47.640

Elmer Hadley. And he had had students. And so there was a whole bunch of us. And then there were other professors. So there was a whole bunch of us, a cadre of us that were working in laboratories. And we ended up being friends. And we would we'd go to concerts together and stuff like that go out to eat together. How did you how much time were you spending in these these labs? When you were

00:44:47.640 - 00:45:15.800

working specifically, not when you were taking laboratory classes? A lot of time, probably hours a day, maybe sometimes on weekends. And so it was a significant time. And, and the whole group of students did that. And that's really common. You use laboratories tend to be not only a place where people work, but socially, a social group as well. And I see it here, you know, in at Wash U, when I

00:45:15.800 - 00:45:43.320

had a very large lab laboratory with graduate students and postdocs and visitors and stuff, they it's it's like a magnet for people. So they're spending time there, even if they're not doing something in the lab, they might be reading the newspaper or just being there. When you started working as a lab technician, I'm just recalling from about my laboratory experiences as an

00:45:43.320 - 00:46:12.280

undergraduate, and then doing research for professor, I had, I'd learned some techniques, right, in the laboratory classes that I took. But in order to do the type of research that was required for a professor independently, there was a lot that I just didn't know. What did you have a similar experience when you started doing this independent laboratory work?

00:46:12.280 - 00:46:36.440

And if so, how did you learn the techniques that you needed to in order to undertake the research? I had absolutely the same experience that what you learned in a chemistry lab and a biology lab had nothing to do with what was going on in a research lab. So I learned, Don Levin didn't know how to do a lot of these techniques. So I learned from somebody else, in maybe a lab in

00:46:36.440 - 00:46:59.560

cell and molecular biology or something, because we started to do some some analysis of proteins. And so I just learned in another lab and then set up the lab, basically his lab in order to do that. And that happened with a number of things where you just, and that's how everybody learns, you go into another lab and you see the techniques and then you bring it into the new lab.

00:47:00.760 - 00:47:25.800

And I don't remember that as being particularly difficult. And when you were in Dr. Levin's lab, were you learning things beyond just the technical aspects of doing science and doing research? Were you being exposed to what scientific culture was like or grant writing? You mentioned that you had some research published as an undergraduate.

00:47:25.800 - 00:47:51.160

Were you involved in learning how to write scientifically or was Dr. Levin teaching you how to write scientifically? No, there was no teaching. I didn't do much writing. I'm not, and I wasn't particularly good at it. I was involved in data analysis and data collection. We did field work. He was working on a lot of native prairie plants. And so that I was involved

00:47:51.160 - 00:48:20.040

in collecting and doing analysis of the proteins and then also data analysis. Okay. And did you work in this lab the entire time? Once you started working there, were you in it until the end of your undergraduate education? Yeah. Okay. So several years working in that lab. As your college career progressed, when did you start thinking differently about

00:48:21.160 - 00:48:46.200

what your ultimate goal would be once you received your degree in biology? You've mentioned that you had considered working at a company in Chicago. I know that you went on to get a master's and a PhD. When did you start to think about something other than just working in a lab in Chicago? I think that was when I was a senior and I took some plant physiology classes.

00:48:46.200 - 00:49:15.080

It was, again, a woman professor and she said, I should go to graduate school. And Don Levin said, I should go to graduate school. And so then, obviously, I like being a student. So that seemed like a good thing to do. And I had to do something. So then I applied both to University of Illinois, Chicago, and then Don Levin had then been recruited to go to Yale as a professor. And

00:49:15.800 - 00:49:42.200

so I also applied to Yale. Okay. Are there other aspects of your college career that you think we should discuss or that you'd like to note? It could be, I don't know, maybe you became interested in theater. And so, you know, you started doing Shakespeare plays during the summer or, you know, I like throwing out these random things that just come to my mind. Were there other aspects of your

00:49:42.200 - 00:50:14.680

college time that you think we should would be important for us to discuss? A lot of horseback riding? I still did that quite a bit. And pretty seriously, but never had a horse or anything. What else did I do? No, it was mainly biology. And then again, there's this whole group of friends, people that I worked with, that we did a lot of stuff with. You know, we went to Northwestern

00:50:14.680 - 00:50:43.560

and heard Simon and Garfunkel, you know, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Okay. So you mentioned you applied to University of Illinois. You also applied to Yale University. I know that you went to Yale. Were you accepted at University of Illinois? graduate school? Yeah. The woman who taught my plant fizz course wanted me to work with her. Okay. And she was apparently a little disappointed

00:50:43.560 - 00:51:11.240

that I but understood that Yale was an attractor. How did your parents feel about this continued education and your decision to pursue an advanced degree in science? I think my father was extremely proud. He just was so excited that I went to Yale. I think my mother was more suspect because she felt that for her, what women did was to have a very traditional role. So I think she was

00:51:11.240 - 00:51:37.000

somewhat uncomfortable with it. Okay. And so what made the so the decision to go to Yale was because of Yale's name compared to University of Illinois. Yeah. And Don Levin was going to be there and I was going to work with him. And it turned out to be a really good decision. Okay. Up to this point in time, had you traveled much outside of the Chicago area? went to Germany a couple of times

00:51:37.080 - 00:52:04.120

because to visit relatives. On your own or with family? Once with family, once on my own. We started to take this vacations. Again, we didn't have much money. So my parents bought a tent and ultimately a little trailer that turned into a tent and did a couple of years of really nice vacations going out to the west and going to

00:52:04.120 - 00:52:33.720

the Smoky Mountains and actually to the Ozarks and once around up north around Lake Michigan. So there's that that that was a travel that we did. Okay. So I wanted to know what it was like for you going from Chicago to New Haven, Connecticut. Was that transition a difficult one for you? Was it relatively easy? No, it was it was hard because I was a blue collar kid from Chicago, an immigrant

00:52:33.720 - 00:52:58.840

and and then at Yale, I mean, there were I still remember one party that I was at and this sort of is indicative of the whole thing. And there were we were talking about literature or something like that. I was listening about literature. I wasn't talking about it. And one one kid who was actually the son of the ambassador to Russia at the time, at least that's what somebody said,

00:52:59.480 - 00:53:23.480

said, Well, I don't understand these literature survey courses. How you can have them in college, that's what you get in prep school. Well, and I just finished my literature survey course, I kind of liked it. And I didn't know what a prep school was. So there was just this huge cultural gap. And a lot of the graduate students that were at Yale had come from Vassar and places like that.

00:53:23.560 - 00:53:52.920

So they were all Ivy League, most of them. And here I was this blue collar kid from Chicago, and just culturally, it was it was difficult. They all drank like different brands of whiskey and stuff like that that I'd never even heard of. So it was just it was it was it was interesting. And that that that subsided after a while. How many people were in your entering class

00:53:52.920 - 00:54:22.680

for graduate school? Well, I don't know. Because it depends on how you describe what a class is. So we were a group of ecology and evolution, there might have been 10 to 12, something like that. Teen wasn't that many wasn't that many. And gender makeup. Oh, probably 60 40. There was a number of women. Yeah. So when moving into this, this graduate program,

00:54:22.840 - 00:54:49.720

how is it how is it structured overall? Were you taking classes? Were you thrown into teaching? What was the overall arc of this program? That it was basically, you were required to take a couple of classes, like two, I think that was maybe the requirement, if I'm remembering right. You were expected to do research that was it was really research focused. There was seminars

00:54:49.720 - 00:55:14.760

where we had they were relatively small seminars where we bring in people from other schools and in many cases rip them apart. It was really bad form. But what was interesting is there there were a couple of classes that were really seminal. One at this point, there was an extraordinarily distinguished ecologist, G. Evelyn Hutchinson, and he was an icon, like a god in the field.

00:55:14.760 - 00:55:42.600

And he would teach this ecology course. And it was so incredible that you take it once and then we'd all sit in and on it again. It was just one of those amazing experiences. So I remember that distinctly. There was a really interesting course. It was a new course and it was the theory of population processes. And what was interesting about that is it was all theoretical. And we had

00:55:42.600 - 00:56:06.360

a problem sets. And in order to do the problem sets, you had to program now code a computer. This was an IBM 360, which is a really small computer. And we had these cards and you'd submit them. And the cards would be read. And then you'd come back three hours later, and you'd get like one sheet of paper that would say, you know, error, and you'd have to go through and fix it.

00:56:06.360 - 00:56:27.480

Anyway, and I became friends, ultimately, when I became a professor with with a lot of the instructors in that class. And they said they just laughed at us because they couldn't believe we actually learned to program a computer so we could get these darn problems done. So that was an important class because it was a real reach for everybody. We had to do a research project

00:56:28.440 - 00:56:54.920

coming up with a theoretical construct and then programming a simulation of that construct. So it was it was something that was that was important because it made us reach so far beyond what we were comfortable with. Now, I know that you came to Yale, Don Levin was moving there as a professor. Did you, before arriving at Yale, had you already decided that you would continue work with Dr. Levin?

00:56:54.920 - 00:57:16.280

Or did you? Okay, so there was no exploring other labs, other professors work. Okay. What about other students in your class? Did they do rotations in different labs to kind of figure out who they wanted to work with? We didn't have rotations, but I think they started talking to folks. And we had these seminars. So every you got very familiar with what the faculty

00:57:16.280 - 00:57:45.000

members did. And also what their labs were like, because different labs have different cultures. You mentioned, you know, getting together with graduate students at parties and things like that. What were you doing outside of your time as a graduate student when you were at Yale? Were you did you find a place to go horseback riding? Okay, yes. But were there other aspects that

00:57:45.000 - 00:58:12.920

you were exploring while you were a graduate student there? It was interesting because at first the culture of Yale was intimidating. But after a while, I really began to enjoy it because literally there'd be people talking about philosophy on the street corners. And they had a series, a concert series at a Woolsey Hall. And the orchestras, for example,

00:58:12.920 - 00:58:37.240

or they asked that would come into New York, they would also play Woolsey Hall. But we could serve as ushers. And so we would get in free and would actually make a little bit of gas money and get to see all these amazing people and amazing orchestras and stuff. And so that became really, really intense. And one of my roommates was a musician. So we would go into New York

00:58:38.200 - 00:59:08.520

and hear the Wagner's and the Rings cycle and just all kinds of stuff. And so it was really, that was really exciting, the music scene, the classical music scene. So that took up some time and that was really fun. I began to read a lot outside of biology at that point, Herman Hesse, and just a whole bunch of different things. I just did a lot of reading.

00:59:09.320 - 00:59:38.200

And that was, I would go to the bookstore and just buy books. And that was really fun as well. So I still just, I've always been interested in reading, so I just continue doing that. And can you tell me a little bit what life was like in lab for you? How many hours were you spending there? How many other students did Dr. Levin have? Was it a similar culture to

00:59:39.240 - 01:00:01.880

the University of Illinois where people were going to other people's labs to learn techniques? What was the culture like in those labs? The culture was a little more isolated. The lab was kind of small. There would be like maybe five people. And you spend a huge, basically, if I wasn't in class or riding a horse, we would be in the lab. And that was where we spent most

01:00:01.880 - 01:00:28.200

of our time. You know, not all of it doing stuff. Like sometimes I'd reach the Atlantic or Saturday review or something like that, because they had subscriptions in the lounge that you could just take and read. And so it really was pretty intense, really intense graduate education. And Don Levin was sort of a taskmaster. He expected people to be in the lab. But one of the

01:00:28.200 - 01:00:53.160

things that was so great about Yale is that everybody came through. And so these people that were icons in the field, they would come in, they'd give one of these seminars, you could talk to them. So there was just this very, very intense intellectual environment there. And I mentioned at the seminars that they could be brutal for people that came in. And we all had to give

01:00:53.160 - 01:01:16.920

seminars. But you really learned to think on your feet. And for me, after going through, some of them were almost like harassment. I mean, now you'd never allow that. You'd get kicked out of the place. But it was a good experience, because I've never seen anything close professionally to what we had to endure in those seminars. And so when you've seen the worst, it makes you pretty

01:01:16.920 - 01:01:43.160

calm about what's coming. When you started working in Levin's lab at Yale University, were you encouraged to develop your own project? Or were you taking on an aspect of Levin's research that was going to become the focus of your thesis? It was something that he was interested in. It was actually a very interesting natural situation where you had three species of plants and they

01:01:43.160 - 01:02:10.760

were hybridizing. And everybody was sorted out on an ecological gradient. And so that was a situation. And that was what Don Levin proposed that I look at. Then what I would say where I diverged from that was the way that I collected data and then did data analysis. That turned out to be going in a direction that was really different than anybody would have expected.

01:02:12.200 - 01:02:36.360

Can you provide a little more detail about that? Sure. So what we thought was that so we used these genetic markers and isozymes. Nobody uses them anymore because we have much better, we use DNA. But so there was this hillside and there's species one, species two, species three, and there was hybrids in between. So I actually didn't look at that whole situation.

01:02:36.360 - 01:03:05.000

I looked just at one species and plotted them. I did a very detailed position analysis of each individual before I did the genetic analysis. And what we found was that instead of being like a smooth genetic transition across the ecological gradient, there was this incredible variation going from one site to another. You would have these large differences genetically and then

01:03:05.880 - 01:03:37.480

and had no relationship to the ecological gradient. So it turns out that theoretically this had been predicted long ago by this guy, R.A. Fisher. I know, Sewell Wright, Sewell Wright. As a theoretical results of when you had gene migration that was really limited. And so that was the case here, that pollinators tend to go always close. They don't fly between large distances. I'll take a sample

01:03:37.480 - 01:04:04.920

plant here and get some pollen here. It's like they're efficient. So they'll go to the closest plant. And that turns out to have genetic consequences to making this what looks like a uniform set of plants being genetically very different. And so there was a theoretical concept that suggested that and then was able to show it. And nobody had ever shown that before. So that was a very good

01:04:04.920 - 01:04:32.840

study for the time. And so that was your thesis work? And then I was able, then by lumping the data all together, I was able to show that in fact there was a pattern, a genetic pattern. So I looked at the relatedness based on multiple markers. And that then emerged this pattern called isolation by distance. That again had been predicted. So it was a cool project. Different than what we had

01:04:32.840 - 01:04:57.400

initially started, but a good project. While you were speaking about your work, you did move between talking about you in the individual sense and then talking about the collective. So there's the I and the we. And so I'm wondering if there was significance between the uses of the I's versus the we's. Like we were working on this, but it's also your thesis project. So you are working

01:04:57.400 - 01:05:25.320

on it. And I was wondering if there about the the link. That blurred initially it was clearly we and all the previous publications it was we. And Don Levin was very generous to put me on them. And then initially he was on some of the papers. And then some of those papers for my thesis I was so author on. And I think he wasn't happy about that. So there was a little bit of acrimony,

01:05:25.320 - 01:05:48.840

but not bad. But you know, with this isolation by distance, that was a single authored paper in nature. And that's a big deal. But that was you know, that was work. I came up with that. I came up with the data analysis to do it. Right. Can you tell me a little bit more about then what the writing process was like for you once you're starting to create soul author papers. You'd

01:05:48.840 - 01:06:17.320

mentioned earlier that writing wasn't necessarily your specific forte. You got something published in nature. So clearly, you learned how to write science write scientifically. How did that come about? Well, the dissertation, that was really painful. And I had to rewrite and rewrite chapters. But I think I learned a lot. And then as all of these papers started coming out, there was just a

01:06:17.320 - 01:06:40.360

lot of writing and rewriting. And you know, you'd submit something, we'd submit something and then you'd have to revise it. So that's a real learning experience. But still writing was really, really tough. But you slowly get better at it. I mean, the great thing is, if I can learn to write, anybody can learn to write. It just got better. I mean, to the point then where later on in my

01:06:40.360 - 01:06:55.800

career, we've had some comments about how well written something would be, which you know, I never would have imagined. Because at first it was incomprehensible pretty much. So it was an iterative process that you were picking up over time, based on the fact that you were receiving commentary and things like that.

01:06:57.240 - 01:07:30.600

So at one point, I know that you were at Yale until 1974. So this was 69 to 74, was your graduate career? Yeah, actually, 73, I kind of finished. But Yale only gives degrees in June, whatever it is. Then I did a postdoc at the University of Georgia. So when I was initially asking about, you know, your undergraduate experiences and then talking

01:07:30.600 - 01:07:50.680

about graduate school, you'd mentioned, well, you know, you like being a student, so you're going to go on to Yale, continue on being a student learning. At what point during your graduate career, did you start to think about what the next step was going to be? And what was that next step? It was when I was writing my dissertation and Don Levin said, well, what are

01:07:50.680 - 01:08:10.920

you going to do when you're done? You have to do something. And so that was when I started applying for postdocs. It was a little late in the game. So you just had you, so you were encouraged to do something, you know, to take a next step. The next step for you was the postdoc. Did you have a vision for what was going to come after the postdocs?

01:08:12.120 - 01:08:38.760

I guess vaguely that I was going to be a professor. And I had thought that a really good job for me would be to be a professor at a branch campus of a state school and do predominantly teaching, but do research, you know, maybe not such high powered research, but research with a local environment with the students and working on plant evolution in that way. So my goal was

01:08:38.760 - 01:09:03.560

predominantly to be a teaching professor. Did you have experience teaching during your graduate career? Very little. We had to do one TA. And so I was a TA in introductory biology. And that turned out to be, you know, the students were just terrific in that class. I remember this pretty distinctly. And actually, one of them I still have contact with, he's now some in New York,

01:09:03.560 - 01:09:30.040

some big financial person, but he did an independent project that we all, you know, that I assisted him with. So yeah, that was, and it was a wild class, actually, it was really fun. So you had that one teaching experience, but based on, did you enjoy it to the degree that you thought your to yourself, you know, I want to be a teacher at a college level? I think so, yeah,

01:09:30.920 - 01:10:02.600

it was a good experience. Okay. So you're wrapping up your your PhD. You finished the work in 73, you're encouraged to apply to postdoctoral fellowships. Did you have any guidance about where you should be applying to postdoctoral fellowships? What universities? Yeah, but I knew who was really good in the field. And so I met with those individuals. But I ended up going to

01:10:02.600 - 01:10:26.520

the University of Georgia with Wyatt Anderson, he had been a faculty member at Yale, and had moved to Georgia. And so I did a very short postdoc there actually ended up working on oysters of all things, about as close as you can get to a plant, I guess. But it was developing some techniques. But actually, what was what happened is, Don Levin was recruited to the University of Texas,

01:10:27.720 - 01:10:51.960

my, my senior, my the fourth year when I was a graduate student. So I actually moved to the University of Texas to wrap up to do my data analysis and to, and, and to write my dissertation. And then turned out to be really important, because the University of Texas had this huge evolutionary biology group. And there was this guy, Bob Sealander, who was really difficult and

01:10:51.960 - 01:11:17.640

crusty. And he had was developing some techniques and some data analysis techniques that I was really interested in. So I ended up interacting with him a lot. And for some crazy reason, we really got along well together. And so that was really instrumental in doing a lot of the data analysis for my dissertation, and being able to really pick out all of these. So if you looked at

01:11:17.640 - 01:11:37.480

one genetic locus, it was chaos, you looked at another one, it was chaos, there's no pattern. But if you started to mash all the stuff together, you could actually pull out some conclusions and everything. And so there was some techniques and some programs that he was working on that, that I got to use. And that really, really helped a lot.

01:11:39.720 - 01:12:11.080

Can you tell me a little bit? Another thing that's important is I was, I had a little office space in the herbarium and just tucked off in a corner. There was a desk next to mine. And this young guy who had just finished being in the Navy used that desk. And we now had two, two children and a bunch of grandkids. All right. So Texas proved to be a good place to go. You met your future,

01:12:11.080 - 01:12:41.720

you met your future spouse. I am curious to know, though, you'd lived in Chicago, you had traveled with your family, you'd now lived in New Haven, Connecticut. You're going to Texas in the early 1970s. What was that transition like? This is still a tumultuous time for the United States. Civil rights era, Jim Crow laws, change takes time. What was it like

01:12:41.720 - 01:13:07.000

being in Texas at that time? Well, I was, before I went there, I was pretty terrified because of just the cultural things. Because, of course, it was very liberal in New Haven and particularly the group that I was in. We had all kinds of protests and going on at Yale. There was a National Guard and a lot of us were involved in that and those protests. So it was pretty

01:13:07.000 - 01:13:37.720

concerning. It was in Austin and Austin is like this island. And so it was, it's really liberal. I used to walk to campus and I'd go past this little store that was called Whole Foods. So it was, and lots of hippies and so very, very comfortable, very comfortable. And then I grew to really appreciate Texas, you know, away from the cities just out in the countryside.

01:13:38.280 - 01:14:06.120

The culture of the people there was very open. There's a lot of really liberal old Czech farmers. And so it was portrayed one way, but it was very heterogeneous. And there was a lot of of pockets of people that I was extremely comfortable with. You mentioned that it was, your postdoc was with Wyatt Anderson at the University of Georgia.

01:14:06.120 - 01:14:37.480

That started in 1973 or was that? 73. So you finished your thesis but hadn't received your degree yet. So you were, I guess, technically a predoc, postdoc. Right. Yeah, exactly. But once you defend most of the time that and then that paper is signed, most people consider you're at your right. Yeah. Right. What was it like going to Georgia at that period of time?

01:14:38.440 - 01:15:07.640

Georgia was more conservative and more uniform. Again, I had a university and so that's a, that was comfortable there. It was a short postdoc. I wanted to get back to my future husband. And we had a couple of papers come out and so a lot of theoretical work. So I learned quite a bit. It was a good postdoc. You mentioned that your future husband was in Texas after

01:15:08.280 - 01:15:32.600

military career. Was he a graduate student at Texas? Was he? Yeah. He was an undergrad at the University of Texas and then after being in the military, he came back and visited some old professors and one of them was someone who had himself been in the military and said, well, yeah, you can come and hang out in my lab. The only issue is you have to come and have coffee at

01:15:32.600 - 01:16:04.360

6.30 every morning. But so that was how he started. And what area of science? He is, again, he ended up working with Don Levin of all things. But he's more ecological. Okay. He's more ecological. So you had some papers come out of your work as a postdoc at Georgia. Anything else from the that period of time that you think we should discuss? Yeah. I had been on the job market

01:16:05.240 - 01:16:26.120

and ended up actually getting a job at the University of, as a graduate student, I was on the job market and I had gotten a job at the University of Houston and they allowed me to delay for one year to do the postdoc. Okay. What was interesting at that time is, you know, so there was a cadre of us at Yale graduate students and everybody was out getting jobs.

01:16:26.120 - 01:16:47.880

And that's where you could see there was still there's discrimination because I did really well as a graduate student. And there were folks, men that didn't do as well, and they ended up getting these nice jobs. And I got University of Houston. So it was interesting. And, you know, you can't, you can't pull that apart and you can't say it was discrimination.

01:16:47.880 - 01:17:14.680

But a number of people noticed that there was a difference in the kind of places that even I was interviewing at. Did you apply to places other than the University of Houston? And if so, where? Yeah, I applied, I think to University of Tennessee. I interviewed their University of some place in New York. I can't even remember. I did about

01:17:14.680 - 01:17:39.800

five places. And were they all state schools as you envisioned? Yeah, they were all state schools. What was the position specifically at the University of Houston? What were they looking for? They were looking for an evolutionary biologist. I think with plants, yeah. And what was the expected teaching load and research? It was expected to be researched

01:17:39.800 - 01:18:06.200

primarily in one course, one course a semester. So you mentioned that you had this vision of yourself becoming principally a teacher at a university you apply for and decide to take a position that is now principally research? Well, it was still a strong teaching. Two courses a year that are intense with lots of students, and then there's probably a seminar course as well. That's

01:18:06.200 - 01:18:32.840

pretty intense. Okay. What was it like transitioning to a position as an assistant professor? At first, not terrifying, but I didn't know what to do. It's sort of, you know, you unpack all your books, you sit on a desk and go, and now what? I have to start a research program. But that was like a week. And then it became, because I had already been familiar with the Texas flora,

01:18:32.840 - 01:18:58.120

it was real easy to start choosing a research project. And so I did and did a lot of work there that actually continued when I was at Ohio State. Did you feel that prior to becoming a professor, you had achieved a certain level of knowledge of what it meant to be a faculty member at a university? I know that you're supposed to be applying for grants for

01:18:58.120 - 01:19:26.280

research support. And you have to construct a syllabus. Did Levin or Anderson or anyone else provide any guidance, mentorship about how one becomes a professor, how one applies for grants or anything like that? Not really. I knew I had to apply for grants because, you know, I was now in a cohort of other professors at the University of Houston, and they were all applying for grants.

01:19:26.280 - 01:19:52.840

So I knew I had to apply for grants and knew I had to publish papers and I knew I had to start a research program. But I think I got that by Osmosis, where there was no training whatsoever, it wasn't teaching. I mean, it was really just amazing at that time. How do you construct a syllabus? How do you run a course? How do you interact with students? I had students trying

01:19:52.840 - 01:20:23.640

to date me at that point. I mean, I was really young. I was like 24 or something. But weird. And so that teaching you learned by, I mean, I think the way I learned was by making mistakes and reading the student reviews and fixing things that, you know, when you start getting more than one or two students saying something, then you figure you really have to fix whatever

01:20:23.640 - 01:20:50.520

they're saying. I had that at Ohio State. I taught this ecology class. And I got a number of student evaluations that said I was disorganized. And so I figured out I'm really disorganized if they say that. And it was really easy to fix. But you just, you just, that's the kind of feedback you need. You know, now what we do, we not only look at student evaluations, but we have faculty members

01:20:50.520 - 01:21:16.360

that sit in on classes and all kinds of things. And as part of the faculty mentoring, and well, there's faculty mentoring, there's formal mentoring, you get feedback on that. But those days, it was learned by experience. And just like with some other things, I think you make, I made a lot of mistakes. And I learned by them. So how is it starting your research in Houston? Did you

01:21:16.360 - 01:21:46.680

find it relatively easy to get your lab up and running? I had hardly any lab at all. I had, I basically, this was kind of weird. There was a faculty member who headed this University of Houston Coastal Center. And basically, they wanted me to bring this technique of electrophoresis, looking at proteins, allozymes into that group. And so he had ordered all of the equipment and

01:21:46.680 - 01:22:10.600

everything, which is just really bad form. I mean, when you're starting something, the professor that does it should be really ordering the equipment. So, and so basically, I had the feeling there that they wanted me to set up this lab, and then everybody else was going to use it. So I ended up not doing that. I ended up actually doing some more ecological work where I could go out in the

01:22:10.600 - 01:22:30.760

field and collect data. So I had a number of publications from that, actually. But it actually was not involving the protein work. And then when I was recruited to Ohio State, then I set up my own lab and did those techniques again. And then actually, what was really significant there is started to have conversations with someone about analyzing DNA.

01:22:34.520 - 01:22:58.920

All right, I'm just taking a couple of notes to myself. So during this period of time, as you're doing this research, I know that I'm pretty sure you mentioned that it was Ohio State where you were the first female tenure track faculty member. What was the makeup like at

01:22:58.920 - 01:23:16.440

the University of Houston? Was it predominantly male? Was it a mixture of men and women? It was predominantly males. But again, there were some women. Okay. All right. Not many, maybe two or three. And you just mentioned that you were recruited to Ohio. How did that come about?

01:23:17.400 - 01:23:47.080

I realized that University of Houston was not the right place for me. I think by that time, I had really shifted my career goals to doing research that I was really interested in pursuing that. And it was predominantly teaching, even though this group was trying to become more research-oriented and was research-oriented. And there were some political issues in the department.

01:23:48.360 - 01:24:14.280

I had sort of a split position that I was supposed to be at this coastal center, but also in the department. And that's what I know now. That's a recipe for disaster. But it was real clear that this was not a good position and that I was going to end up getting stuck there. So I very quickly applied to other jobs. Okay. Where were you applying to?

01:24:15.400 - 01:24:44.200

Well, I applied to Ohio State because I got the job. And I can't remember exactly where else I applied to. At this point in your career, were you... So when I was first going on the market after finishing graduate school, my partner and I had the two-body problem. So there were two individuals that needed to be in the same relative location in order to make things work. Were you at that

01:24:44.920 - 01:25:05.560

level in your relationship with your... I don't know if you were married at that point, but you're part of a career... Yeah, married at University of Houston, yeah. Okay. So was that an issue for you two as well, looking to find an institution that was interested in taking both of you or being in a city where there were multiple institutions where each of you

01:25:05.560 - 01:25:35.560

could find a position? I think since my husband and I are the same age, but he was in the military for four years. So he's always been behind in terms of his career. So he was willing to go... He was still at... One of the advantages of Houston was it was not a hard drive to get to Austin. So while I was there, we were going back and forth all the time. So we decided... I think

01:25:35.560 - 01:26:04.760

Joe recognized that Houston was not a good place. So I had the job at Ohio State and he came with and then looked around for another position and ended up working at Ohio State, but in the research office helping with grants and things like that. So that was his position. Okay. So how was the transitioning to Ohio State University? I mean, you're familiar with

01:26:06.200 - 01:26:36.600

the Midwest and what life is like there, but you're also coming into a department where you are the only female tenure track faculty member. How was that for you? Well, it was... I got a lot done and I had some really good friends there on the faculty. There's a couple of faculty members. One was clearly a misogynist and so I didn't interact with those folks. I

01:26:36.600 - 01:27:07.000

interacted with my friends. The students were good. That was nice. I think there were aspects that were strange. I got invited to the Botany Wives Club, which was weird. I guess I was in Botany and I was a wife, so I was okay, but I didn't know what they meant. So it would have been okay to stay at Ohio State. I mean, there were some peculiarities, but it was okay and I know lots

01:27:07.000 - 01:27:33.240

of people that are there and it's really changed. So it would have been a fine career place. You mentioned your experience when you were going to Houston that you were brought in to set up a certain lab, but someone had already ordered all the equipment. Did you have a similar experience when you were setting up your lab at Ohio State or were you given more freedom at this point to

01:27:34.040 - 01:27:59.800

get the equipment that you wanted to have the lab space that you wanted? What was it like at that? I had complete freedom. I could do whatever I wanted as long as it was good. And so we went back to analyzing proteins and also did a lot of field kinds of studies. So I had four master students at that point that all finished and they did very nice projects, cute projects. So

01:28:00.680 - 01:28:25.240

that was a good experience there. And I was a regular faculty member. I was treated like one, although I think there was a lot of discomfort, I think, having a woman on the faculty. Just these little, the micro sorts of things. So in a faculty meeting, you all sit around a table and I'd sit down. And at the end, there would be two vacant chairs on either side of me. And so

01:28:25.240 - 01:28:48.440

it's like, you know, I took a shower. And so there were those kinds of things. When I was, when we were on the graduate committee and they'd admit somebody, if anybody was interested in me, somebody would invariably say, well, this person is going to need a really firm hand, as if I couldn't provide that firm hand. So that was that kind of stuff. And that

01:28:48.440 - 01:29:14.600

is a little annoying. I remember I didn't conduct an interview, but years ago, we conducted an interview with Mildred Kohn, a chemist, who was the first, I think, first tenure track female faculty at the University of Pennsylvania. And she spoke about her experiences in industry prior to joining the faculty there. And what she noted was that there was one company she was working

01:29:14.680 - 01:29:39.880

for where, even though she was a PhD chemist, she wasn't allowed to have a professional rating in her position. Because the company assumed that if she received a professional rating, all of the men at that company would divorce their wives in order to pursue her and just need the social chaos at the company. So she couldn't be considered a professional. She had to have a subprofessional

01:29:40.600 - 01:30:12.280

rating. So I mean, your story sounds kind of, you know, obviously different in certain respects, but these assumptions about women in the workplace and capabilities, or like you said, microaggressions in the ways that you were framed or discussed, or people just sitting next to you. So was it was it difficult for you to recruit students when you first became a faculty member?

01:30:12.840 - 01:30:39.560

No. No. No. And how did that recruitment process work? I think that at a place like Ohio State, students, people just apply to it. And then they say what their interests are. And then there's a discussion. And once the graduate students come in, then I think they choose who they want to work with. And so that's the way it worked. Okay.

01:30:41.960 - 01:31:06.280

During this time at Ohio State University, you mentioned that this is where you came, started doing genetic analysis. Is that, am I remember correctly? Yeah, just the Alzheimer's stuff, which I had done as a graduate student. Okay. What this does, what this does is it gives you supposedly non-selective random genetic markers. So one of the real challenges, I was trained in

01:31:06.280 - 01:31:30.680

population genetics. And one of the challenges is that you want a genetic locus, and you want it to have variation, and you want it not to be under selection, so that you can track a lot of other things. And so these Alzheimer's were the closest thing that we had at that point. And there was some question about whether they were under selection and all kinds of questions,

01:31:30.680 - 01:31:59.080

but it was the best that we had. And they're pretty good in many cases. So that was the technique that I was using. One thing I hadn't actually asked about, and I really should have, so I'm going to ask you to reflect a little bit on your graduate school as well. Were you attending conferences? Were you interacting with people outside of your department as a graduate student

01:31:59.080 - 01:32:25.000

or as an early faculty member? And if so, what conferences were you going to? There was a big one put up by the Botanical Society of America. And that was the one that I think historically, people in my field went to. So yeah, I went to those and gave papers. Oh my gosh, the first one I was so scared. What was the experience like for you? Oh, terrifying. I had it all written out,

01:32:25.000 - 01:32:53.240

and it was really hard to even read. That was when I discovered, yes, your knees actually do knock together. Which is just hilarious because I just gave a, oh, hi kitty. I just gave a graduation speech at the University of Illinois, Chicago in a basketball stadium, you know, with the people up in the ceiling. It didn't start out that way.

01:32:54.200 - 01:33:22.680

I know you're at Ohio State for four years. In 1980, you received the Sigma Chi Research Award. Can you tell me a little bit about what that award was? I think it was a chapter Sigma Zi supports research. And I guess somebody nominated me and I got it. That's all that I know. Okay. It's also when 1980s, when you became a research associate at the Missouri Botanical

01:33:22.680 - 01:33:51.080

Garden, right? That was after I came to Wash U. Yeah. That's after you came to Washington University. Okay. So can you tell me a little bit about how the transition or how moving from Ohio State to Washington University came about? The director of the Botanical Garden at the Missouri Botanical Garden was Peter Raven at that time. And he was an evolutionary plant biologist, in addition to

01:33:51.160 - 01:34:17.000

many, many other sorts of things. And it really was like one of the major people in the field. So the graduate students at Ohio State invited him as their one speaker in the year. And he so he came and he said he would want to, he was supposed to interact only with the grad students, but he said he wanted to come and talk to me. So he came to my office and we had this conversation

01:34:17.000 - 01:34:42.440

about stuff that I was doing and evolutionary biology and that sort of thing. And he then said, you know, we should get you to give a seminar at Washington University. And I said, oh, sure, I'd love to, because I was giving seminars at other places as well. And so that was, and then I was invited to Wash U. And being completely naive, I didn't realize it was a recruiting trip.

01:34:43.400 - 01:35:11.160

And so it was actually very important because I went and talked to a lot of members of the department. And I was in a botany department at Ohio State. And this was a biology department. And there's a lot of interaction and people were talking about genetic stuff and kinds of research that I didn't know anything about. And it made me realize that I was being

01:35:11.160 - 01:35:36.200

quite insular in a botany department at that time. The graduate students didn't need to take a genetics class, for example, which is just hard to believe given that genetics is under, under pins, everything. And so I had this great seminar interaction with people and great conversations. And I really, really had a wonderful time. And at the end, they said,

01:35:36.200 - 01:36:03.560

you know, we have a job, a position for an ecologist, and which is a stretch for me. And we'd like you to apply. And it turns out that they had had this position open for a long time, because the department was clearly cell and molecular oriented. And when the ecologists would come into interview, they would do regular ecology stuff, and nobody liked it because it

01:36:03.560 - 01:36:28.200

wasn't cell and molecular. So I came in and gave a talk and said, well, and what I'm planning to do is to do to switch this all over to analyzing DNA and seeing we can get an evolutionary signal from DNA, which it turns out, yeah, you can. And that's a really good idea. And so they basically said, we found the ecologist that we like, she wants to work on DNA, which is of course ludicrous,

01:36:28.200 - 01:37:04.040

because it's not ecology. Anyway, so I ultimately, because of the good intellectual scientific interactions that I had, and also the Missouri Botanical Garden and Peter Raven, it was just a huge attracture to come here. And I talked to Joe, my husband, and within came for a real visit. And he liked St. Louis. And so we ended up coming here. And that was in 1980.

01:37:05.400 - 01:37:30.840

And you're coming in as an associate professor. Did you come in as an associate professor? Yes, with tenure. So you came in with tenure. How had you felt about the tenure process? This is why I'm laughing. This is so bizarre. Lots of bizarre stuff. So the department said, yeah, we want her, we want her hired as associate professor with tenure. So I got the job offer.

01:37:31.480 - 01:37:58.280

But it turns out, and I went and they just took my hiring package, and that went through the tenure process. So I really skipped the whole tenure thing. But it turns out that I was talking to the chair at one point on the phone, and he said, well, there's just a little bit of a hitch. It turns out that I was the fourth, the third woman that had been hired from another university

01:37:59.240 - 01:38:21.640

with tenure. And this then, so the history is that there were two other women hired as associate professors with tenure, and I was going to be the third. And this was this first round of hiring from this new chair. And so it has to go through the affirmative action committee. And as I was talking to the chair, I just joked and said, what's the matter? You've been hiring

01:38:21.640 - 01:38:43.240

too many women. It turns out that was what was going on. There was this one guy who said, what's wrong with biology? They won't hire women as an assistant professor that only hire them as associate professors with tenure. Anyway, that got straightened out. But what this, what basically what this was this guy bought the fetch, what he was doing was looking at women that were

01:38:44.040 - 01:39:09.880

placed at universities where they were clearly much better than either where they were at or their rank or something like that. And he ultimately ended up hiring four of us in this way. And three of us are members of the National Academy of Sciences. So it was a brilliant strategy for that period of time. Because every one of us was kind of miffed at where we were.

01:39:11.880 - 01:39:38.680

So Ohio State, did you feel like you would the did you feel that the tenure process there would have been more of a would have been a challenge? No, I don't think so. When I got the job offer, the chair of the department, who is my friend, went to the dean and basically said, this is what they're offering her. And he, the dean didn't want to do anything at first because

01:39:38.680 - 01:40:04.840

he said they'll never hire me with tenure. But then when I had a letter that said tenure and all of this other sorts of stuff, he, he said that that they would grant me tenure. So so I would have avoided that. But I don't think it would have been a problem because I had research grants and I had publications and stuff like that. So as I've asked you a couple of times,

01:40:04.840 - 01:40:33.640

what was it like transitioning to Washington University in this case? It was great. It was just great. We loved St. Louis right away. And I loved the university. Joe was looking for positions. And ultimately, ended up somebody died at St. Louis University in the biology department. And they said, we need someone to teach a genetics class. Joe, who took genetics once,

01:40:33.640 - 01:40:58.280

you know, as an undergrad, so I can teach that. And so he ended up ultimately getting tenure at St. Louis. It became then a regular position. So they did a search and Joe got the job and then went through the whole tenure thing. Okay. How was it setting up your, your laboratory and your research at Washington University? It was very easy. I thought I had a lot of money to do it

01:40:58.280 - 01:41:25.400

compared to what they get now. It's nothing. But a lab was renovated, renovated for biochemical stuff. And while it was being renovated, I worked with another faculty member in her lab learning DNA techniques. So I was I was already learning all of this laboratory stuff while mine was being built. And then I had gotten a postdoc. And she basically had been doing some DNA stuff with animals.

01:41:25.400 - 01:41:47.720

And so she helped with a lot of the setting up of the lab. And then as soon as it was set up, I started getting graduate students very, very quickly. And we ended up putting out some some of the very first papers with plants. There were three laboratories that were doing it. Ours was one of them. You mentioned that you, you had a postdoc who

01:41:49.160 - 01:42:18.200

knew some of these DNA lab techniques with animals. How did you get that postdoc? She was, let me see how this position was. I think she was, I think she might have come through. I think we had a postdoc, we had a postdoc position in the department. I believe that's how she came. Okay. Okay. And what was the or what is the graduate student, what is the structure of

01:42:18.200 - 01:42:43.000

the graduate student program like at Washington University, right? You, you, when you went to Yale, you knew that you were working with Dr. Levin. What was it like for, for students coming to Washington University? Did they come in? Did they apply saying, I want to work with this professor? Were there laboratory rotations? How did, how did people become familiar with your work?

01:42:44.200 - 01:43:04.040

It's kind of all over the above. The, what you had at that time, a very unusual system, I think it was one of the first places or maybe the first place to do it. The, the graduate program is not tied to departments. So we didn't have a biology graduate program. What was done was there's a lot of preclinical departments in the medical school with a cell and molecular

01:43:04.040 - 01:43:29.800

biologists. Some even had a plant biologist in them. And so the graduate program is a unification of all of these basic biology folks that do research on living systems. And so we had a program, our program is ecology and evolutionary biology. The students would apply to that program and then they would say what they're interested in. And they wouldn't say the specific professor,

01:43:29.800 - 01:43:51.640

but the, it was real clear who they might be targeted to. Sometimes it'd be one or two possible people or sometimes it was clearly one person that they were targeted to. We also had a joint program with the botanical garden. And so a student would come in and say like, I want to work with mosses. That would obviously be someone that wants to work at the botanical garden. So, so I was

01:43:51.640 - 01:44:16.840

getting, and then we had a plant bio, we have a plant biology program. So I was getting students mainly from ecology, evolutionary biology. Also the graduate people that were doing graduate work at the botanical garden, a lot of them ended up in my lab. And then I had students from plant biology as well. And so how did you structure? I'm trying to think of the way I want to form a

01:44:16.840 - 01:44:42.760

discussion. When you were doing your graduate career, your, when you were in graduate school, the project that you started with was a specific component of Dr. Levin's research. I know that in some fields, graduate students are expected to come in and take a component of their professor's larger research project. And that becomes their thesis. Other programs

01:44:42.760 - 01:45:07.000

you're come in. And as long as your research interests align with what the professor's working on generally, you get to come up with your own specific research project. How are you structuring things for the individuals who are coming to you as graduate students in terms of their research relative to your overall research program? So it was, it's a ladder that we expect

01:45:07.000 - 01:45:29.800

students to come up with their own research project. I mean, not, not, I think there's, there's some negativity towards having them just take like an objective foray on a grant or something like that. It's very different than a lab would be that's funded in NIH. At the medical school, that's much more common to say, here's part of my grant. This is what your project is. In my lab,

01:45:30.360 - 01:45:50.840

people would come in, they would use all kinds of different organisms. They'd have different aspects of it in part because I was developing this real partnership with the botanical garden. And so it was getting a lot of students there. And what they would come to my, so, so literally one of my first students was interested in mosses. And he came to my lab because he wanted to learn

01:45:50.840 - 01:46:15.960

DNA techniques and ended up ultimately being a graduate student there. So we've worked on, I had a postdoc that worked on oak trees and I had students that worked on pines and mosses and everything in between. We started to do work on cultivated plants as well. So lots and lots and a huge diversity from things that were in some cases very ecological to things that were looking

01:46:15.960 - 01:46:42.520

at molecular evolution of specific genes. Ultimately. How did you see yourself as the principal investigator for that lab? Were you taking active involvement in all the research that was going on in the lab? Were you walking around and checking in on your students and showing them how to do techniques? Were you providing more advice and recommendations about

01:46:42.520 - 01:47:04.840

directions to go? Were you applying for grants? Like how, how is it that you saw yourself as being the head of that lab and how did you interact with the people who were in your lab? Well, it changed over time. At first, you know, I was in the lab and shoulder to shoulder with graduate students. And then as you come more and more advanced, one of my colleagues said,

01:47:06.120 - 01:47:27.800

one of his students said, you never in the lab. And his comment was, you will be out of the lab only if you're successful. If you're not successful, you'll still be working in the lab. And there there's some truth to that because of the grants and the paper writing and all of the other sorts of things. So at first, I was working in the lab. And then ultimately, it was more and

01:47:27.800 - 01:47:52.280

I never have been hands on and a micromanager. It's it's not my personality. You know, I just have no interest in doing that. And so the group was really selected for students that had a lot of initiative. They often had their own own interests. And we choose projects by having these discussions. I met with all the students at least once a week. And then we had big lab

01:47:52.280 - 01:48:14.680

meetings as well. I'm no longer research active. So that's why there's the past tense. And and so we just discuss what are you interested in? And I had enough funds that I could send them out in the field and do collections to get preliminary studies. And so there was just this dialogue back and forth. But and they'd show me their data and data analysis. So always keeping up on all

01:48:14.680 - 01:48:37.880

these projects, but not going in the lab, not looking over their shoulder and not telling them what to do on a day by day basis, because these are all going to be probably probably they'll have positions at our one university, and they have to learn to have self, they have to have to take care of themselves, they have to learn how to do things themselves. Did you involve the

01:48:37.880 - 01:49:04.520

students in the grant writing processes that you were going through? Did you work with them on constructing their papers? How is your what were your perspectives on? So a lot of the students would get NSF grants, dissertation grants. And so we had a lot of those grants. And that was that we worked together really hard on those. And and then after a certain point, then we would take

01:49:04.520 - 01:49:26.200

them to lab meetings and everybody in the lab would go over the grants. And I think that was one of the reasons why we're so successful. Because if it wasn't clear to everybody in the lab group, it's never going to be clear to reviewers. And we did the same with papers, lots and lots of work. And and when people went out on the job market, we have lab groups, and we would have them do

01:49:26.200 - 01:49:51.960

their presentations, and they get feedback and everything. So lots and lots of group work on those sorts of things. And so how did you see or what vision did you have for your research in those early years at Washington University? What is it that you wanted to accomplish? I know you mentioned that you were moving into the the DNA arena, exploring that. But overall, how did

01:49:51.960 - 01:50:21.560

you envision your research progressing at that at Washington University? I guess I viewed it as, I mean, I wanted to have a big act of research lab. I mean, that that was that was essential. I wanted to do research there. I wouldn't say that I saw a progression. I saw it as there are these really interesting questions in plant evolution. And there's many different ways that you can address

01:50:21.560 - 01:50:43.400

them. And what was going on with the DNA stuff is that some of these questions had been really, really long standing. And you could apply these new techniques now and actually get some answer. And that was really exciting. And so I think the goal was to look at these and plant evolution and find out all of these new things that you wouldn't be able to find out before. So that was kind of

01:50:43.400 - 01:51:04.360

the beginning of it. And we did that on a macro level, looking at evolutionary relationships among species and also more towards what my interests are, which is what are the evolutionary processes within plants within plant populations. And then there was a major change when I became interested in and cultivated plants in crop plants.

01:51:07.080 - 01:51:30.280

Can you tell me a little bit about that change? Sure. I know exactly how it happened. I got a phone call from somebody who was in working with USAID in the State Department. State Department, I think it's state, no agriculture, USAID is ag. Anyway, USAID. And he said, I'm an officer. And I'm also working on my PhD,

01:51:30.280 - 01:51:53.800

I think at the University of Maryland. And I'm working on this crop, cassava. And the question is, nobody knows where it originated. And it's a really important crop. And then he started telling me about it, that it was something that grows in Africa. And it was actually taken, well, they didn't know it at the time. It was, it's grown in Africa. He was interested in Africa.

01:51:53.800 - 01:52:21.560

It provides a huge number of calories and it's a subsistence crop. And it's not being studied. We don't know what the origin of it is. And to me, for some reason, this was just outrageous that you would have this crop that's the primary source of calories in sub-Saharan Africa. And nobody even knows where it came from. And the reason you want to know where it came from

01:52:21.560 - 01:52:44.280

is if you're going to do crop improvement, you go to the original source of genetic material, which often is so much more genetically variable than something that's been domesticated. We know that there's a genetic bottleneck associated with that. And so I said, well, come on to the lab. And I don't know what cassava is, but I'm sure we can answer your question, which was probably one

01:52:44.280 - 01:53:15.080

of the stupidest things I've ever said, because it took us a lot longer to know where cassava came from to get the techniques down. So he came and that just started a real interest in me, because it turns out that there's now organizations like the Danforth Plant Science Center that are trying to genetically engineer cassava to provide a complete source of nutrition for sub-Saharan

01:53:15.080 - 01:53:38.040

Africa. And it's something that's really, really important. And I saw this as an opportunity to take the stuff that we've been doing in the lab, which is primarily just curiosity, basic science, and apply it to something that was kind of important. And so we then started to work on a number of different crop plants. And that's kind of led to keeping the other stuff going

01:53:38.040 - 01:54:02.360

with grad students, but it also started out this other branch, which has been really, really interesting. And it led to some really just interesting. I've been to Africa. We started working on rice, and we had this wonderful, wonderful collaboration with faculty and researchers at Chiang Mai University in Thailand. So it's been a lot of time in Thailand. And so that's been

01:54:02.440 - 01:54:26.920

that is kind of the progression of the lab. One other question about just general laboratory life for your students. Did you have specific expectations in terms of the number of hours that students were going to be in your lab? Was it a, you're here Monday to Saturday, and then occasionally on Sundays? Was

01:54:26.920 - 01:54:49.640

it like, it's nine to five, and then you go home? What was your overall expectations for students in terms of time spent in the lab? Get the work done. I don't care when you do it. Okay. No, I'm never worried about that. They had to come to lab meeting. Okay. And they had to come to my office once a week. And they had to attend class and seminar.

01:54:50.520 - 01:55:20.520

There's some things they had to do, but when they did their work, some people came in early. Some people came late. There's people on weekends, but who it was, they're adults. So you started at Washington in 1980. 1986 is that when you become a full professor? Okay. That's also, it seems to be a year where you start to become

01:55:21.240 - 01:55:47.240

more broadly responsible for other aspects of science around the US. And I know that was a very vague statement, but what I'm thinking of here is it's when you're a full professor, that's when you are on the editorial board of functional ecology. Soon after you're the executive vice president of this society for the study of evolution, the editorial board of molecular ecology.

01:55:47.640 - 01:56:11.160

Can you tell me a little bit about how your career started to change once you receive that full professorship or maybe it's not tied to the full professorship, but tied to work that you produced in those years that you're now being recognized more broadly in the scientific community for? Yeah, I think it was a ladder. I don't think it had anything to do with being a full professor.

01:56:11.960 - 01:56:46.760

I think it was, journals need editors and so it's not a big thing to be an editor because they need people. The executive vice president of the evolution society, that was interesting. I was in charge of finances and this is not my strong suit at all, but it was interesting and there was a lot of mechanical work getting the yearly

01:56:48.200 - 01:57:15.400

conference going, working on the finances, presenting to the membership, all these sorts of things and so that was an interesting learning experience. And what was it like, I know in 1993 you became elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. How was that experience for you? I view that more incorrectly as an honorific sort of

01:57:15.400 - 01:57:45.080

thing and I can't remember when, I don't know if it's even in my CV, but I was like a chair of one of the biological science sections, something like that, but I think that was in recognition of my research profile. Okay. One thing that I've been curious about and I don't always know the best time to ask this question because I mean you're still, at this point in time, you're early

01:57:45.080 - 01:58:14.520

into your career, but you've also gone through some important changes happening in the United States, specifically transitions among different presidents. You've gone through the Carter administration, at this point you've now pretty much made it through the Reagan administration, now we're on to Bush pretty soon, you're going to be in the Clinton years. I'm wondering if you have

01:58:14.520 - 01:58:45.880

any broad perspectives about the way that funding had changed over time during the early part of your scientific career. Was it easier to get grants at certain points in time? Did you need to focus your grants in different ways based on the broader political climate in the United States or was it mostly that science was science and so this wasn't about politics in some broad sense,

01:58:45.880 - 01:59:14.200

but it was just about science and getting that research done. Yeah, my sense is because I was doing basic research that it seemed to be independent of politics, that it was just science, it came from National Science Foundation and that seemed to be pretty steady. I was fortunate to be in an area that was identified as something that they wanted to fund. Sometimes if you're in between areas of

01:59:15.240 - 01:59:44.600

interdisciplinary it can be a little dicey, but I was right in the middle of what one group was funding. The other question that I wanted to ask about was you did mention that you have children, grandchildren. When you were considering starting a family, let me start with this, when did you decide to start to have a family to start having children?

01:59:49.320 - 02:00:17.000

The joke is that my kids are academically spaced. The first was after tenure and the second after full professor. Clearly having tenure was important, that stability. With the understanding that when you have small children, I figured that my career would take a bump, but yeah, that was a decision. And then Joe had, was employed here, so this was a time of stability for us.

02:00:17.960 - 02:00:54.600

And so how did both of you manage raising the family while also pursuing their scientific careers? Obviously it's really challenging. At Ohio State there was no daycare, obviously because they didn't have many women faculty. When we had our first child, our daughter, there was nothing, no daycare under one year. And so we just kind of tag-teamed. We had some

02:00:54.600 - 02:01:25.800

people that would help us part-time. WashU had no maternity leave, and I was teaching in the middle of class with a second child with our son. I was teaching introductory biology, and one day I didn't show up and Joe, my husband, covered for me. And then the next day, next lecture, that was back. I mean, it was insanity. So that was how we managed. And then ultimately,

02:01:26.440 - 02:01:49.800

there was a daycare center, a really good daycare center, and our daughter was in that. And then when I found out I was pregnant with our son, like the second thing we did was to sign him up for daycare, even though he wasn't show up for nine months or eight months, whatever it was. So it was really dicey at first. It was really hard at first. And then

02:01:49.800 - 02:02:13.240

with really good daycare, it was fine. Did you feel like you or your husband felt received any sort of, I don't know what the best word is, your flak for having a family? You mentioned that there weren't really structures in place, or there were expectations for you, but was it,

02:02:13.240 - 02:02:34.680

did people think of you differently for deciding to start a family, or did they just not care that you were starting it and you just had to get your job done? One of the attractions that I want you for me had was that they had a large number of women in the faculty and they always had, and they were extremely distinguished. And most of them had kids. So I'm really,

02:02:34.680 - 02:03:00.360

really unusual for 1980. So it was almost like the expectation is that I was going to have kids. So very, very different. I think at Ohio State, I don't know what would have happened. And as your kids grew up, did you bring them to your lab? Yeah. Part of the problem with our daughter, I had a crib in my office. And so periodically,

02:03:00.360 - 02:03:26.040

she'd be in the office. And she was a calm baby. So that worked out real well. And then we had a son and our son, and that did not work out well, was really clear. He could not be in the office. But as they grew up, did you introduce them to the scientific life? Yeah. I mean, they knew we would go to conferences and take the whole family. When I was a vice

02:03:26.040 - 02:03:55.720

president of the Evolution Society, our daughter at one point said, I want to go to Hawaii. So we arranged a conference in Hawaii. Nobody complained. Everybody loved it. So yeah, they would come to the lab periodically. We'd have some really fun times when we'd bring the daycare class into the lab. And that got to be, on our floor, we had four different laboratories. And the other three

02:03:55.720 - 02:04:25.800

were working with animals. And one in particular worked with a lot of wild animals, things that you would find out in nature. And so the kids would see snakes and this salamander-like thing called a hellbender, which was a frightening looking animal. And it was good fun. And beyond those early years with the daycare group and things like that, did your children come to

02:04:25.880 - 02:04:57.320

the lab as they were growing up to see what you were doing? Were they learning some basics of experimentation? Did you encourage them in that way at all? Not really. I think when our son was in high school, he went with me on one of our trips to Thailand. But he seems to have no interest in science. Our daughter has a PhD in neurobiology, which came a great shock to us.

02:04:58.840 - 02:05:27.800

She's really artistic, and we really were encouraged here to go into art, which is of course bananas, but she's really good at it. She has a great eye, but she is a neurobiologist. Let me actually just check in. Kenny, do you have any questions that you want to ask at this point? Not at this moment. Thank you. Okay. So I've lost a little track of, normally I follow things

02:05:27.800 - 02:05:59.160

chronologically. I know we got into, I guess, the early 1990s-ish. Are there aspects of your career at this point in time that I haven't asked about that I should have? Are there topics that you would want to discuss that I haven't asked about? I was department chair. That was rough. And I decided I never wanted to do administration again. That didn't work either, but...

02:06:00.440 - 02:06:27.400

So why was being department chair rough? I think it's a difficult position to begin with, because you're the interface between the faculty and the administration. And so you're kind of getting things from both sides. And our department went through a very divisive period at that time. And so that was part of the problem. And yeah, it was just a difficult time. There was just

02:06:27.400 - 02:06:55.960

personality conflicts. The personality conflict ultimately left, and everything went nicely after that. How did you find it managing the responsibility of being chair with also your research going on? Because I'm assuming it has to drag you away. There's a finite number of hours in the day and adding on these administrative responsibilities navigating between the faculty and the administration,

02:06:56.840 - 02:07:20.920

that's going to pull you away from some of the research. How did you find managing your overall research program with the additional responsibilities of being department chair? Longer hours. I mean, that's usually been the way that I've dealt with stuff like that. I work a little bit longer. And unfortunately, Joe, my husband, it was very accommodating to that,

02:07:21.800 - 02:07:53.160

because we still had young kids at that point. And so that wasn't so much of an issue. I think you learned to be very, very efficient. That was one of the benefits. I realized, and it's happened again when I stopped being dean, is being a regular faculty member after you've had that additional burden of administration. It's really pretty easy. I mean, a regular nine hour day is nothing

02:07:53.160 - 02:08:26.840

compared to the administration, particularly being dean. So I think you just become very efficient at it. It's also in the mid 1990s that you become an adjunct professor at the Chinese Academy of Science. Yeah. Well, because this was so interesting. Through the connections of the botanical garden and some of the tremendous friends that Peter Raven has, I was asked to come to

02:08:27.720 - 02:08:55.480

to the Chinese Academy of Science and give a course in modern plant population biology. And this was pretty early when China was really opening up. It was before you saw these amazing buildings and everything. And so I agreed to do that. And I think I went for three weeks, two weeks, something like that. First taught the course, and then my family came later to Beijing.

02:08:55.480 - 02:09:27.480

And it was an amazing experience. And obviously, I became an adjunct professor there, but developed some really close friendships with the folks in Beijing that lasted this day. So that was that was an amazing trip, an amazing experience. Just taking a look over your CV. Let's see. Elected Fellow of the National Academy of Science.

02:09:27.480 - 02:09:51.960

That was in 1999. How did that come about? Somebody nominating me is probably Peter Raven. And then I don't know if you know anything about the election process. It defies all the probability of anyone getting elected. And that's absolutely seminal. I mean,

02:09:51.960 - 02:10:31.960

it changed the course of my career. What happened? Well, one, I went back to my dean and said, I want to raise. And which I got. And then very shortly after, I got a phone call from someone at the NRC saying that asking if I'd be interested in co-chairing an activity in the NRC that dealt with agricultural biotechnology health and the

02:10:31.960 - 02:10:54.200

environment. And it was a complete cold call. I had never done anything at the NRC because I'd just been elected. And I was a little surprised by that. And particularly because the biotechnology aspect of it. And I said, you know, that my feeling is I'm an environmentalist. I care a lot about the environment. But because of the work I've done with Cassava, I'm really

02:10:54.200 - 02:11:16.680

interested in developing nutrition and food for developing countries. And genetic engineering is an important component of that. So, you know, I had like a foot in each camp. At that time, it was very polarized. And, you know, but why are you talking to me? And they said, well, because, you know, that's the person that we want. Someone who sees both sides. So then they said, we'd like

02:11:16.680 - 02:11:43.320

you to talk, if you're interested, we'd like you to talk to your co-chair. And the co-chair was Harold Varmas, who had just stepped down from being director of NIH. And so we had a conversation and I ended up doing that. And that was just amazing, just amazing, because I'd never done anything for the NRC in that kind of work where you work on global issues in a very different

02:11:43.320 - 02:12:08.920

kind of way. And Harold, working with Harold Varmas was terrific because he's an amazing person. And I've learned, you know, how you do things in a committee like that. And sometimes with Harold, how things you don't do in a committee like that. And so that was a standing committee. And I think it was a number of years where we had a whole bunch of different topics.

02:12:08.920 - 02:12:31.320

But the first time that we met on a topic, we had a lot of people in the room. And this was really seminal for me. There was a group that was, we wanted to do a balance. So we wanted to see people that were advocates for genetically modifying crops and people that were concerned about it. You didn't want the extremes, but you wanted people that were thoughtful, but coming

02:12:31.320 - 02:12:55.320

at it from different angles. And there's a lot of emotion. I mean, it wasn't crazy or anything, but clearly it's an emotional sort of thing as well. And basically, one group says, you're going to destroy the environment and you're going to wreck our health. And the other group says, you don't care about Africa and providing good food for Africa. Both of them are crazy statements.

02:12:55.320 - 02:13:18.680

But that was sort of this undertone. And there's this amazing experience. And I'm not sure I want you to put this in, but I'm going to tell you anyway. So then we had a break and everybody went, of course, to the bathroom. And there was all these women. And we sort of had like this discussion basically saying, well, no, I do care about the developing world, but I'm worried

02:13:18.680 - 02:13:41.080

about the environment. Well, I'm worried I care about the developing world, but I'm also worried about the environment. And we sort of had this meeting in the bathroom over washing our hands about how in fact, you could reach some commonality. And I thought that was, I mean, that to me was really, really significant. It was a really significant event. And I'm probably overstating

02:13:41.080 - 02:14:07.880

the way it was, but really, really interesting. And to me, that's been really important that even though a good NRC committee has a lot of different things represented and a lot of different viewpoints, but you can sometimes come to some consensus and some understanding. And particularly, it's really important to develop respect for everybody who's on the committee, because they

02:14:07.880 - 02:14:35.320

wouldn't be on the committee if they weren't really good at what they do. And this idea that you can really sometimes come up with something that is appropriate for everybody's background and everybody's interest. So that committee was really, really important to me. Not so much in the products, which were important, but also in how you deal with, to me, was a completely new

02:14:35.320 - 02:14:58.360

set of issues and a new way of looking at things, a new thing for my career. What was the overall time commitment or the average time commitment for serving committee? We would have meetings and you'd go to the meetings. It wasn't that much, I don't think, even as co-chair. There wasn't a lot of work outside of the meetings that the

02:14:58.360 - 02:15:21.480

NRC staff is so terrific. And so they take care of a lot of getting the background material. We'd have to vet who was going to be on various, who's going to come to a workshop or to a committee, but it was pretty straightforward. Were there additional resources that were made available to you beyond just the NRC staff in order to support the work that you were doing? Did you?

02:15:23.080 - 02:15:45.080

I mean, I can't actually, nothing is coming to my mind immediately, but were there other financial supports for additional research that you might have wanted to have done or reports written or anything along those lines? Or was it really just going to these, organizing and then going to these meetings and having these discussions?

02:15:45.080 - 02:16:08.680

Yeah, and then there was writing up reports afterwards as well. But yeah, it was really the NRC staff. I think the NRC works where they get funded by various agencies to do things. And so this had that kind of funding and the staff is terrific, absolutely terrific. Kenny, do you have any questions about the NRC?

02:16:10.040 - 02:16:36.360

Yeah, well, I know that you were elected vice president just six years later or something like that, which seems like a pretty rapid turnaround. And I know you'd also mentioned not wanting to get back into administration after experiences as chair, wondering what changed during that time and what the election was like to the vice presidency.

02:16:39.160 - 02:17:05.720

The kind of work that I did on this committee with Harold Varmas, that's very different than administration as a chair. I think the hard part about being chair, I don't mind, I like getting stuff done, but it was the personalities were at that point a little bit toxic. And so that was what gave me a really negative opinion of being chair, I think. So getting elected

02:17:05.720 - 02:17:36.360

vice president of the National Academy, that was a surprise. I was on the committee to choose the next president. And it was a huge committee. And they also had to choose a vice president, people to run for being a vice president. So the president is basically this committee that chooses that those two officers, it's a committee that chooses the president, but then it develops

02:17:36.360 - 02:18:01.560

a slate for vice president. And so I was on this committee. And at one point, somebody said, Barbara, we'd like you to leave. I'm okay, I'll leave. I'm gone. But don't go far. So again, one of the themes here is I'm really naive about this stuff. So I thought, well, that's curious. And then I came back. And I just remember one person was very, very crusty smiling at me.

02:18:02.280 - 02:18:33.480

And now that's nice. And of course, what had turned out was that they had decided that I should run for vice president, if I would agree to do that. And so then I was asked at a different time. And I, it's a half time position. So that requires, I mean, that's a real, real difference. Yeah, the time is amazing. And, and so I talked to my husband, and he said, well, I, you know,

02:18:33.480 - 02:18:57.880

I don't know, what are you going to do about Wash U. So I talked to the, my dean and the chancellor and said, you know, it's going to be half time. And I remained as a faculty member and full time at Wash U, but my salary was compensated half time. And, and they both said, this is fantastic. Absolutely do it. And I got a reduction, and I didn't have to teach undergraduates.

02:18:57.880 - 02:19:20.600

I shouldn't say have to, I was not, I did not teach undergraduates, which very quickly regretted. And, and so, so that's how that happened. It was very strange. And what, I mean, as someone not entirely familiar with the kind of governing structure of the national academies, what were your, I mean, what did you think about where you explain what

02:19:20.600 - 02:19:45.720

the responsibilities would be going into the job? Did you know ahead of time and how did you see yourself functioning in that position? So there's a lot of things that are just, you're part of the job. You sit on the executive council of the NRC. So, so that's an obligation. You, you sit on the council of the NAS. So those, those are regular kinds of meetings. So lots of meetings like that.

02:19:46.440 - 02:20:12.440

And then there, there's things that just become part of the portfolio. And it depends on who's vice president. So I was involved in the frontiers of science, which is an amazingly wonderful program. And then lots of stuff that the council does. So there was a lot of travel to various places. There was, I worked with one of the initiatives that I worked with was communication of science,

02:20:12.440 - 02:20:38.120

which is really thorny. And I was involved in the Sackler symposia and had to work with Jill Sackler. And that was a whole new experience with somebody. And let's see, what else did I do? There's just a huge amount of stuff. So it was really varied and very interesting. Then there were, there were, sometimes there were issues that needed to be pursued. We did

02:20:38.120 - 02:21:05.960

something on, on science and creationism. And I was involved in that and Amicus Breach brief for, for Kansas on education and evolution. Just, just many, many different things. Lots of meetings and I've worked with the president a lot on things. So the communicating science issue, there was a lot of work done on that global climate change work on that.

02:21:06.520 - 02:21:30.520

So a lot of scientific issues and then some kind of administrative issues. And then some of just really working, keeping the, the wheels running on things. Did you, as, as vice president, were you able to kind of add to your portfolio? If you saw, for instance, like the communication of science, sort of really thorny topic, was that something that you

02:21:31.480 - 02:21:53.960

thought the national academies should be addressing? Or was that mandate came from a I think that came from a conversation with, oops, I think I didn't hear that last part. Uh-oh. I think he's frozen.

02:21:55.800 - 02:22:08.920

Yeah, Kenny, you're, you might be frozen at this point. Oh, now, now you're moving again. Yeah, you were frozen. Sorry, it looks like my internet is not so good. Houston is not known for its infrastructure,

02:22:08.920 - 02:22:32.040

I suppose. But I'm sorry, I was asking, I was asking about the kind of your role in choosing pieces of particular policy topics or scientific topics to become part of the national academy. So for instance, this communicating science, was this something that you wanted the national academies to pursue or was it something that

02:22:32.040 - 02:22:46.680

was already with under their kind of umbrella? Well, I think a little bit of both. It was Ralph Cicero, who was a president, and I talked a lot about it, and so that was kind of a joint thing. But it's something that I think everybody acknowledges really critical to do.

02:22:48.040 - 02:23:07.880

I see. Yeah, sorry, is my internet, or can you guys hear me okay? Yeah, yes, you're still there. Sorry. Well, I guess we're at a point, we're like a few and a half hours in, so first I wanted to check and see if anyone needed a bio break.

02:23:09.320 - 02:23:29.640

We have three minutes, so I can get some more tea. Okay, yeah, sure. I will pause for a second. Hello. Today is June 30th, 2022. I'm Kenny Evans, I'm here with Dave Caruso, and we're doing our second oral history session with Dr. Barbara Shaw.

02:23:29.640 - 02:23:53.000

Thank you again for being here and joining us. I was going to just start by asking first if, I know we were kind of left off when we were talking about your election as Vice President of the National Academy of Sciences and your activities there, and I'm wondering if there's anything from last session that you wanted to mention or thought about in the interim between

02:23:53.000 - 02:24:16.120

the two interviews and wanted to talk about first before we get into the rest of the interview. Since I can't remember what I told you, I guess there's nothing. I'll assume I said everything. Okay, great. Well, there are things, of course you can add them later, we can chat again or things pop up as we get back into discussion. Feel free to bring those things up.

02:24:17.080 - 02:24:44.600

So, I know you were Vice President when you were nominated to serve on Obama's PCAST. I'm wondering first what that nomination process was like when you got the call and what your kind of expectations were going into serving on PCAST? Yeah, I remember distinctly Harold Varmas called and said that he was on PCAST. I think he was one

02:24:44.600 - 02:25:12.520

of the co-chairs at that point and that he talked a little bit about the agenda, that it's going to be a very strong science agenda in the Obama administration and then mentioned a couple of the things that people were thinking about and then asked if I'd be willing to join them and that was very exciting to say the least. What were the things, the issues that Dr. Varmas

02:25:12.600 - 02:25:36.360

mentioned in the phone call? I think if I remember correctly one of it was the H1N1 and the concern that that was going to be a pandemic and if so what were the bounds of it, what could be the estimate of mortality, how infectious it was, those sorts of things. That's the one thing that I remember and that was indeed the first report that PCAST did.

02:25:37.080 - 02:25:57.720

That report was actually done before we met formally for the first time. Oh wow, so that was on the Varmas or the other co-chair, Scott? Yeah, John Holdren, yeah. As with all PCAST reports, well most PCAST reports I think, they convene a working group and so the working group has PCAST members

02:25:58.600 - 02:26:25.800

but also then experts in the field and so Harvey Feinberg I think was one of those folks. Did you, before joining, did you have an impression of PCAST or had worked with PCAST like previous to the Obama administration? No, I never worked with them although I know that when we were doing various activities at the NRC, sort of the Action Eye and Arm of the

02:26:26.920 - 02:26:53.160

National Academies, people would talk about what PCAST was thinking about. A lot of that in the Bush administration. That was not a particularly active PCAST and one of the things that that PCAST did was to leave a letter for the next PCAST which was Obama's PCAST about some of the things that they suggested to be done that were different from what they had done but I don't remember any

02:26:53.160 - 02:27:21.240

of the details of that. So I just remember hearing a bit about PCAST and what PCAST's take was on particular particular things. Gotcha, thank you. Did you have Dr. Varmus at that point was he giving kind of instructions to you about one what PCAST would be, I mean outside what they were working on, what you specifically would be charged with doing or what your time commitment was for instance?

02:27:21.800 - 02:27:48.280

I think the time commitment was during the during the first term because of what would happen at the second term but I think he did mention that if it would continue that that people would continue so it could potentially be an eight-year commitment. That was about it. I think he did mention that there would we'd have to have SCI

02:27:48.360 - 02:28:11.720

security clearance and so that was something and and and being appointed was actually depending on whether or not you got the security clearance so that was that was a big issue. Then I think also and this is just what I'm thinking, I don't know if this is for sure, but I remember getting a call from from the White House basically doing some background

02:28:11.720 - 02:28:40.680

sorts of things and I remember because it was so amazing they they asked if I was the barber shawl who in like 1990 something got a speeding ticket in Richmond, Virginia and by divine intervention I've never gotten a speeding ticket which is just bizarre since I drive Interstate 70 to Colorado and then whether I was a barber shawl who had had a divorce in California or something so so

02:28:40.680 - 02:29:06.280

they were doing I think they were checking records but this seemed to be I think from the White House making sure that there was nothing my sense was and I could be maybe I am wrong that they were doing some to see if there was anything that could pop up that would look would reflect poorly on PCAST and on the Obama administration and then you do the real security clearance you know with the

02:29:06.280 - 02:29:31.880

forms and the interviews and and all of those sorts of things I had actually had a security clearance because I needed it for the vice president of the national academies but it was a top secret and it was an SCI and it was a different unit the the security clearance was held I think through the Navy's the office of the Navy and the SCI one through was through the White House and

02:29:32.760 - 02:29:57.640

whatever that office is that ultimately does it. Interesting I don't think I'd heard that the appointment was contingent on on passing your clearance. That was my sense that particularly with you know the comments about the the speeding ticket and the divorce they were checking a difference kind of thing but but I this is just what I'm making up in my mind that was the way

02:29:57.640 - 02:30:25.960

that I took it. Well I'm glad everyone was a safe driver. Well so before your first meeting with of course formal meeting with PCAST were there briefing materials how were you integrated into working on say the H1N1 report and and getting PCAST work started what was that process like. I think it really started at least for me because I wasn't on the H1N1 went at that first meeting

02:30:26.920 - 02:30:50.120

when we were you know we all had to swear allegiance to the Constitution and then after that then I think things really started and a lot of it had to do with we certainly had comments about you know our department and and making sure that we reflected well on the White House and introduced all of the members and talked about you know what their area of expertise was

02:30:50.840 - 02:31:14.680

and then batted around you know I think a number of topics this was quite a while ago so I'm having trouble remembering the specific topics. Yeah all good. Do you have any thoughts recollections about the first meeting was it was it at the White House was it your first time at the White House where was it? It wasn't it wasn't at the White House the first meeting was now I'm trying to

02:31:14.680 - 02:31:36.040

remember if the first meeting if we actually did go to the White House I can't remember what we very early went to the White House which was just you know for someone who's an immigrant is just absolutely stunning we walked in the front door and that was just amazing and meeting with Obama and just the whole thing about the White House was really quite amazing. We met in the state

02:31:36.040 - 02:32:05.880

dining room I remember that and but we had a lot of you know we talked a lot preliminary to going to the White House and I can't remember whether it was at that meeting or at an earlier meeting just about about keeping things confidential and not making statements that sort of thing. So I think particularly this is my sense so it could be wrong I'm trying to be careful here

02:32:05.880 - 02:32:28.840

my my sense was that particularly early on the Obama administration the White House was very very cautious and very concerned about having things kind of go haywire and and have a lot of public pushback on things and on which would be understandable given given the situation but but we were it was very clear we were to be cautious.

02:32:32.440 - 02:33:04.120

What was yeah that makes sense makes sense yeah what was that first meeting with Obama like what did he bring to PCAST and what was his kind of thoughts on on PCAST and PCAST role and what was the general kind of tone of that meeting? The tone of the the first meeting was just it was pretty amazing and he received the he had received the report on H1N1 and had been

02:33:04.120 - 02:33:29.000

briefed on it and apparently had read part of it. One of the things that became very clear throughout the Obama administration is that he was very very interested in science and that seemed to be very he was very comfortable around us and that began with the first meeting and and basically he looked at the report we talked about the report and then he said well

02:33:29.000 - 02:33:52.440

why are we at this point why are we still developing vaccines why do we grow them in eggs give me a report a subsequent report about speeding up the the development and and the amplifying up of vaccines because the concern was always a pandemic and how long does it take so that report really dealt with with what you could do to speed up the development of vaccines

02:33:53.000 - 02:34:19.880

and you know that among many other things led ultimately to this amazing development of the COVID vaccines so so that he was very interested in that pandemic issue. Were these first meetings open to the public was there an audience there or was that no this was in the state dining room there were staff we sat around a big table there was staff

02:34:19.880 - 02:34:48.520

then around the outside most after that most of the meetings were in the Roosevelt room. I see did the Roosevelt room then have a kind of a public forum was that a different no no that that's actually um that's a skit facility so we couldn't bring in our our phones or any anything. Gotcha thank you at the first couple meetings did you I guess I'm wondering what the kind of

02:34:49.480 - 02:35:21.800

who was setting kind of priorities for who would work on what and if it was Obama or Holdren or Lander or Varmas at that time. Yeah it was it was particularly John Holdren he was I think a very he's a very genial person but also very smart and I think there was huge respect for John Holdren among all the PCAST members and so he really was a very I don't want to say strong because

02:35:21.800 - 02:35:46.280

that implies that he was pushing people he was able to convince all of us to to to really follow some of the things that he was interested you know and Harold Varmas of course was very interested in the medical aspects of it and then as as we went through Eric Lander then ultimately became co-chair when Harold had to step down because of I think he was running NCI I think at that point.

02:35:48.440 - 02:36:15.560

So and then then that but that was much later. I know I've heard from others in the Obama administration that it was a pretty significant time commitment to work on PCAST and serve on PCAST at what point did you see that PCAST becoming such a major piece of Obama's science agenda and your and your time I guess for instance. Well I think I think it became real clear there there

02:36:15.560 - 02:36:41.800

was I believe still that we had like 35 36 reports which is a very large number and and so we were split up and and working on various reports so I participated in a number of them but I co-chaired one on the nation's natural capital which was looking at basically preserving biodiversity and ecosystem services and how that affected the nation's economy. That was a huge amount of work

02:36:43.080 - 02:37:08.360

and then on other reports we could be part of the working group part part of a member of it so some of the things on energy or education you could participate in that as a member of the working group that wasn't the same as being a chair or co-chair the co-chair work really was a lot more. The one thing that I think it was made it less onerous than it than it seems is that the

02:37:08.360 - 02:37:37.800

staff was absolutely terrific just an amazing group of really brilliant hard-working sensible people and and so the staff really was was a very very strong component of this you know they they certainly took the directions from poldron and from the the PCAST members but they were so competent and so that you they really did a lot of work a lot of background work we did a report on

02:37:38.520 - 02:38:07.720

agriculture and supporting agricultural research and so they looked back and got information on the proportion of competitive grants and NIH versus USDA just all kinds of data that they would pull up and so so those reports were you couldn't just say something you had to substantiate it so I thought that was and the substantiation came from the hard work of the staff members.

02:38:08.760 - 02:38:38.760

Were the staff were they OSTP staff or were they specific PCAST kind of like in the well OSTP gets people from other departments so there were so there but they were a couple of them were signed assigned specifically to PCAST but then go ahead yeah but then there would be people from other other agencies as well that were assigned OSTP and so there was some overlap.

02:38:40.040 - 02:39:06.360

Yeah I've heard I've heard the name Deborah Stein was she well she was the first I think major staff member Deborah Stein and then she was put replaced by Mary Maxson both of them just really really strong and I'm just a kind of general question about report writing and maybe I know you're in a terrific position to kind of compare and contrast kind of the report writing process

02:39:06.360 - 02:39:32.600

for PCAST versus the national academies was it the same is it similar process or were you doing much of the writing or was it what was kind of that process like in terms of developing a report and writing a report well I think both both the similarities both of them are very staff heavy so the staff are very important to this the the PCAST reports then there's some divergence

02:39:32.600 - 02:39:57.960

the first thing is the national academy doesn't recommend really policy whereas PCAST does and so that was where there was a lot of input from other agencies one of the things that oh yeah this is all coming back one of the things that that we had to do was as we were developing a report is to quote socialize it and that meant going to various agencies so for the the the agriculture

02:39:57.960 - 02:40:23.960

report went over and talked to to USDA and for for some of the other reports we just went around and talked to people trying to get input from other folks in the government and and there was a real sense we didn't want to do something that would surprise shock offend you grossly offend another agency so so it was really important to do that kind of background work and that's real

02:40:23.960 - 02:40:48.280

different than from the national academies because the national academies we get a project the funds come in and then at least at that time it was completely independent of the sponsor so if something came from USDA they would have no say after after the project was started so it was completely independent that's been tempered a little bit at the academy because there should be some

02:40:49.160 - 02:41:12.040

conversation I think the concern always was that the academy should be completely independent and that was not the case with PCAST it was really a reflection of the executive branch when you were socializing the reports were there ever in this for instance with the agriculture report where people at USDA kind of receptive of what

02:41:12.040 - 02:41:39.640

you wanted to work on or were you getting pushed back in terms of recommendations and things that you wanted to push in terms of policy so USDA is huge and there's so many different components to it and my sense is that they all don't march in the same direction and so we were very strongly emphasizing competition and saying that if you look at the NIH what they did was they invested a

02:41:39.640 - 02:42:04.040

huge amount of money into understanding the basic biological function biochemical functions of cells and that led to these incredible advances in medicine you know sequencing the human genome you could say on hand who cares but then you understand what has developed from that precision medicine and all these other sorts of things and so we really emphasized competition and getting

02:42:04.040 - 02:42:28.600

the best and the brightest to do agricultural research and in basic plant biology and so we made that case and there were parts of the USDA where they really applauded that and then there were other parts because USDA has just one lump of funds and if you take some from over here there's going to be less over there and so we were very aware that there was some

02:42:29.560 - 02:42:56.600

concern about what we were doing. I know in this agricultural report there were you know in addition to pushing that kind of competitive nature of USDA there are also budgetary recommendations for say expanding NSF's basic science kind of towards agricultural research and stuff like that. I mean what was I guess I want to ask in terms of making those

02:42:56.600 - 02:43:22.200

budgetary decisions how were you I mean what was your thought process in terms of PCAST being kind of a vessel for kind of advocating at some level for those types of budgetary decisions? Well I think that those kinds of recommendations came from us looking at the data and then drawing the conclusion from the data that that there was an opportunity to really enhance competitive

02:43:22.200 - 02:43:44.840

grants. There was an opportunity there was a sense that the best and brightest young biologists were not going into ag research or even so much plant biology although there's tremendously good people in basic plant biology but the whole ecosystem the developmental ecosystem of basic knowledge needed to be kind of enhanced so that was those those were the data that we had

02:43:45.560 - 02:44:10.680

and then there was a conversation well what do you do how can you deal with the pipeline? Well one way is to have really competitive postdocs and I think that was a recommendation to join between you at USDA or certainly NSF was involved and then just applying having more money. I think most biologists if there's a pot of money we turn towards that and it's a very good way of getting

02:44:10.680 - 02:44:37.720

people to do research in an area. So I think it was first understanding and documenting the problem and then coming up with ways to recommend the various components of it. We also talked about stuff like genetically modified crops and those sorts of things there's a lot of interest in using those as an opportunity to really showing the potential of agricultural research.

02:44:40.040 - 02:45:02.200

I have two kind of related questions about the report of the first being where did you know where did this report originate? Was it something that you brought to PCAST or was it something that Holdren or one of the other co-chairs or Obama spoke to you about and then when you were writing it did you have a target audience and if so what was that audience?

02:45:03.240 - 02:45:28.280

Well I came into so I'm very interested in basic research and making sure that the nation has a really active basic fundamental research enterprise because all of the technological developments come from that so even in physics and chemistry and in all the fields we need to make sure that there's resources for people to do basic research because one you never know what

02:45:29.640 - 02:45:55.560

development is going to lead to something that has a huge influence on our economy and starts a whole new line of industry or whatever and two you can't tell whether something is going to be useful. My favorite example of this is Einstein's theory of relativity and we wouldn't have accurate GPS if it didn't correct for that which is just kind of fabulous. So anyway so I was also interested

02:45:55.560 - 02:46:26.360

in that in agriculture and I went into PCAST hoping that we could do and pushing to do an agricultural one and specifically on the aspect of funding research and making sure that the whole research ecosystem from from actually fundamental research basic research through applied and development so and that was I had talked to people this may not go in the report but I had talked to

02:46:26.360 - 02:46:57.640

people later and a lot of folks on PCAST didn't think agriculture was particularly important so it was it was kind of a long haul about it and and I think at one point Obama and I may be fuzzy on this at one point I think Obama also expressed some interest in one of our meetings but anyway ultimately the PCAST did decide to do an agriculture one and you know Eric Lander

02:46:57.640 - 02:47:27.240

apparently didn't think it was worthwhile and Mary Maxson what I understand again this shouldn't go in the report but Mary Maxson really pushed it as well so that was a long haul. Was Holdren supportive of the effort? Yeah yeah absolutely. I know there were a number of other PCAST members as kind of part of this working group did you did you know Dr. Bierbaum before entering PCAST

02:47:27.240 - 02:47:54.840

or the relationships you had coming in before you joined PCAST? I knew of Rosina I had never worked with her before but we we worked together on a number of different reports and often would sit together in in in PCAST meetings that usually Rosina was on one side and Jim Gates was on the other side it was sort of like three of us three three academics sitting there. Nice yeah well I've

02:47:54.840 - 02:48:24.520

heard we're spoken with both of them also so they were also very proud of their their PCAST work and said that they sat together so it sounded like these meetings were really fun is this impression I got? Yeah I think that's right there was a particularly with Rosina and Jim there was a lot of you know whispered comments and things like that. The PCAST members some of them

02:48:24.520 - 02:48:52.760

were I don't want to say arrogant but certainly very confident of themselves and and so there was a little bit of that actually some other members became quite offended by some of the PCAST members but yeah we had there there were moments that were really fun and the other thing is you got to know it's always when you get to know folks that you realize how people can be or some of people

02:48:52.760 - 02:49:23.240

are just really really nice and Rosina and Jim were in particular were very very pleasant to work with. I had a question about I know you were also co-chair of this Bowdiversity report and with Rosina yeah Rosina yeah and I I'm wondering I know that at the end of the Clinton administration there were two PCAST reports I believe chaired by Peter Raven dealing with Bowdiversity and

02:49:23.240 - 02:49:49.000

Environmental Capital. Teaming with life I think was one yeah. Two questions I mean would I know that you were colleagues with Dr. Raven and I'm wondering if one you were aware of the you know I know was you know 1998-99 or something when those activities were happening if Dr. Raven mentioned it and then two if those reports were of use to you in preparing your own report.

02:49:49.560 - 02:50:16.840

Yeah so Peter Raven and I are friends we still socialize and everything just to get that on the table so so he was very interested in having PCAST revise the Teaming with Life one he thought it was time for an update and I think Rosina may have felt the same way and I was aware of the report and aware that there was a lot of interest in doing it and and I certainly felt as well that

02:50:17.800 - 02:50:43.000

that we needed to do something in biodiversity so and it was it was a use I mean I looked at the report and everything but we did a lot of data again a big data dump to to really update things and it was this is where this of course John Holder was very interested in this and so he was extremely useful I mean he came up with I think the whole direction of it is

02:50:43.000 - 02:51:07.800

that trying to make the case for preserving biodiversity was to preserve the nation's natural capital so we talked about how important biodiversity is and how important it has been in the past for for just the the nation and all the economic aspects of it so that whole tone that that kind of tack on that report was John's comments you know and when and it's obviously

02:51:07.800 - 02:51:31.480

other people and were involved with it you know somebody would say something and then there'd be a big discussion of it and so everybody contributes to these sorts of things it's not like there's just one person doing it there there were Dan Shragg who was my co-chair actually on the agriculture one could be quite could be at times contentious there's a little bit

02:51:31.480 - 02:51:58.600

of contentiousness on that but it was all worked out I still remember this should not go in the report I still remember one time John Holdren saying that Dan would be the first person voted off the island I mean voted off he cast that's so actually I mean he was really problematic and and so then you know you're asking the question why did I chose him as co-chair for

02:51:58.600 - 02:52:22.680

the agriculture one and I figured that the best way to get him to not not to be so contentious was to actually work on it and he was actually very good on the report but yeah he was a little contentious at times well what was the source if you don't mind me asking of his beef I guess with with certain activity it was I think it was a lot of it had to do with carbon you know he's

02:52:22.680 - 02:52:48.200

interested in carbon sequestration he wanted to actually to do a report on carbon sequestration and that never panned out and and I think because there was I think a lot of just scientific issues that hadn't been resolved so but he was concerned I think just about some of the details of things but it all worked out at the end and it was approved so and it came out

02:52:49.480 - 02:53:12.280

how was socializing that report did you have kind of a similar experience as you did with the agriculture were you so you know like any good government people marching in lots of different directions or was it we again socialize it and particularly Rosina so Rosina was in ostp and and so she she really she was great because she knew the ins and outs of all

02:53:12.280 - 02:53:39.240

of these various agencies and so she really took the lead on that and we went to a number of different committees we actually had a congressional brief on it so we went to to congress that was interesting yeah how was that um it was really on one hand it was we just gave information there were questions and it was really clear that there was a division that there were some people that

02:53:39.240 - 02:54:03.240

were literally sitting like this and then other people were clearly for it so but I don't think anything really came of that I think it was just it was really more informative for people that were interested and it's kind of again a heads up that was the goal of a lot of these these meetings with various folks was to make sure that we weren't one doing something that was really just

02:54:04.280 - 02:54:25.880

bad that could be actually counter to what an agency was doing you know and then the agency was doing something very very good but inadvertently you can do you can say things or have a section or something that that could really stymie what they wanted to do so you want to be sure that nothing like that happened did you also brief obama on these reports or what was his involvement in and

02:54:25.880 - 02:54:55.000

either the report drafting or kind of end kind of for a lease of these reports we did when we had our meetings we would brief current reports and I remember briefing on the agricultural one and enlisting you know kind of what the to-do aspects were and so there was you know somewhere where enforce an executive order or that kind of thing so yeah we briefed him on what was going on and I

02:54:55.000 - 02:55:16.680

still remember one time it was really interesting we had a p-cast meeting ahead of time we were going to see the president and so there was just a general discussion about what could be some of the future things that we wanted to do and so we gave him just a list of various topics and I think this was a really good example of how clever he was and how well informed he was

02:55:16.680 - 02:55:36.600

so he went through and he said it was great because some of the ones on top he was not interested in and he said well we've done one report this is very similar so we don't need to do that and then he went down and picked a couple of the other reports that were a little bit lower on on the list so that was that was impressive

02:55:38.600 - 02:56:02.440

I'm not sure if you're allowed to share but what was he interested in this may not be of that list but I can tell you that we had one report which was really interesting and that was technology for an aging a population and it was stuff like what you do in a house what kind of technology can be there you know one of the big things was

02:56:02.440 - 02:56:30.440

hearing aids and so we had a briefing with him on this technology report and he said he was then very very interested in the hearing aid issue and that's a real serious issue I think everybody on p-cast really resonated with this it was hearing aids you have to go and have your ears tested by an auto I think by an auto-laryngeologist somebody who is certified at that time and

02:56:30.440 - 02:56:53.960

then the hearing aids are extraordinarily expensive like thousands of dollars and if you hold up an iPhone the technology of the iPhone which is a couple hundred dollars is so much more sophisticated than the hearing aids but there's this FDA rule that you have to see a doctor make sure everything is okay before you get your hearing aid and and what it was doing was preventing people from

02:56:53.960 - 02:57:16.680

getting hearing aids and that has huge health consequences because when you start to have trouble hearing you begin to withdraw socially and as soon as you withdraw socially and become isolated there's all of these physical health issues you you lose you reduce your cognition and all kinds of different things happen and so he was really really interested in that

02:57:16.680 - 02:57:42.120

and so he said give me a report on hearing aids I do remember one time we were talking about some some other medical things and his comment was he was very he seemed to be very interested in flesh eating bacteria so his comment was if a kid gets a runny nose I don't care kid puts his foot in the in some water and it eats his foot that's really serious I care about that

02:57:42.440 - 02:58:10.760

um he also had a beanie baby of a flesh eating bacteria I'm not sure I know what they look like you know beanie babies are right because it's red and it's got a little knife and fork oh that's silly showed it to us it was quite remarkable yeah we had them we we were part of the beanie baby craze so full disclosure there and whenever that was 95 or something like that

02:58:13.000 - 02:58:37.960

oh it got me off track what was I going to talk about any babies will do that yeah no no totally distracted um I'm well I was going to ask about oh there was a oh I was going to ask a follow-up to the hearing aid question about um now I think something about over-the-counter hearing aids where you didn't have to go through do you know where that is in terms of the process yeah um basically

02:58:37.960 - 02:58:58.920

the FDA rule was changed and so you can get hearing aids now you know and then they're advertising them on on like the tv and and the internet and stuff you know german hearing aids just a couple hundred dollars um you know it's it's it's really interesting because if you buy a good set of headphones um they do they basically do a hearing test and you adjust the headphones

02:58:58.920 - 02:59:25.640

to your own hearing um and that's what what you do for hearing aids uh so that was I think that was a really really important report did you see I have other reports I want to want to ask about but did you see I mean in that case it seems like there's a kind of direct very tangible outcome for for this report were there other items or p-cash reports where you kind of witnessed a

02:59:25.640 - 02:59:51.640

similar thing where there was there was a policy recommendation and even if it takes a long time an outcome yeah I think I paid a lot of attention to the agriculture one and I remember somebody saying is one of our more successful reports because there there were actual things that happened I think there was an increase in AFRI funding and there was that postdoc thing coming

02:59:51.640 - 03:00:20.440

out and then recommended that there be a a foundation established similar to the research foundation for NIH and that for for agriculture research for plant research so and that actually has been established it's called foundation for food and agriculture research and that's been extraordinarily successful they've they've gotten a lot of private funding and they have a fellowship

03:00:20.440 - 03:00:47.000

program they support grants it really is it's a very successful activity so that that was a that was a great outcome in terms of overall funding for agriculture not so much but some of the the littler things actually did happen that's within USDA no I think it's independent but it's like the one for NIH it it just supports some of the areas that that USDA is and so it's

03:00:47.000 - 03:01:17.320

independent but it but it really enhances you know sometimes also with NIH there there's not support for a particular kind of research and it would be really good if there were Monday funds for something that was a little bit risky or something you know there we go the typical cat going off so so that so that's a sort of a parallel thing and that has gone well

03:01:18.120 - 03:01:45.160

um they the the original director Sally Rocky just stepped down and and she was she's fantastic and really um really got the whole thing going so that was a very very good outcome kind of better you know sometimes you you throw stuff out and and hope something sticks and but what's the probability this this one really worked were you involved in kind of did you continue to do

03:01:45.160 - 03:02:11.240

kind of outreach and bring the report around print it out and send it to you know was there an effort from PCAST to kind of keep carrying the the recommendations past the the release yeah we we did a little bit of that but a lot of it was recommendations for agencies so there was some I remember going back to USDA Kathy Botecki was assistant secretary for research

03:02:11.240 - 03:02:39.160

and so it was very well it's very interesting because I think some of the people that we met had to sort of they were employed by a particular part of the of the government and so they they represented that real well but sometimes they had a personal opinion as well and so that was always very interesting so Kathy won't we couldn't do the agriculture report unless somebody asked for

03:02:39.160 - 03:03:06.760

it in an agency that was for that report and so Kathy Wotecki did ask for it and and we had I think we'd go on to her a couple and met with other people in the agencies a couple of times thank you um I wanted to ask about I know you were on the part of the working group about K through 12 STEM education did you talk to me about that report um I didn't do very much on

03:03:06.760 - 03:03:34.680

that that was really headed by Jim Gates and the one that was more involved was one and I can't remember the name but it was Craig Mundy and what was leading it and it was dealing with with with sort of educational issues for modern technology and looking at things such as as providing credentials and how to keep the workforce for basically technology

03:03:35.640 - 03:04:01.880

going and and that I had a much more I was much more involved and it was looking at things such as the role of community colleges and looking at things such as getting a whole you could have a whole series of different kinds of certificates and you could stack them together and it was a way to get people educated so that they could work in technology but not having them go through

03:04:02.600 - 03:04:26.920

a two-year program where they were out of the workforce and and also the other thing that we were very interested in is keeping people up to date on technology and and so how do you how do you keep your workforce current and so there there's a lot of ideas about new ways of doing that that was very interesting it was interesting to work with Craig Mundy

03:04:27.400 - 03:04:51.240

was that I'm trying to remember the name of it was this was it engaged to excel or was it there was another one specifically on workforce this was a workforce one I think interesting thank you I'm gonna ask I have a kind of a question so I know

03:04:53.480 - 03:05:17.720

PCAST originally or in the Obama excuse me in the Clinton administration was the executive order was released the same day as the executive order for the National Science and Technology Council what did you see did you what was the working relationship there in terms of report building or either meetings or anything else I guess how you saw nstc and what the working relationship

03:05:17.720 - 03:05:44.040

there was I don't know very much about that we did have nstc people come and I think it was more my sense was and I could be wrong on this my sense was more it was to keep us updated there were things that we had to do reports that we had to do that were prescribed they were congressional sorts of things so we had to do energy reports and and updates and I think

03:05:44.040 - 03:06:12.600

some of the nstc and this things were that way too but I wasn't you know as a biologist I was much involved in that any of the I know are nano reports mandated by congressional statute I'm sorry I didn't hear that well are the nano reports yeah the nano the nano technology one was absolutely yeah so we had to do those those well if you weren't necessarily part of a working

03:06:12.600 - 03:06:37.560

group or or chairing one what was your kind of responsibilities and role in terms of producing those p-caste reports the ones that I wasn't involved with I think just we we had updates we had when there was a report we'd have people come and talk to us so so everybody even though you weren't let's say on the working group for that there was a series of briefs and so we

03:06:37.560 - 03:07:03.080

always I always felt like I was really carried along on all of those reports and then at the very end the recommendation was to approve and so if that was recommended we did so it was intellectually really really engaging because there was just so much we we had so many amazing you know like like Fauci came of all kinds of people yeah I was going to ask more about about

03:07:03.080 - 03:07:31.240

meetings and when you guys did have I know that p-cast did have quite a lot of of guests come through and meet with p-casts and stuff like that did the meeting format or kind of meeting general tone of all with time at all or did you still meet in the Roosevelt room after the first few years where was there a transition say between the two terms in terms of p-cast and the work

03:07:31.240 - 03:07:55.640

that they were doing it was pretty I think there wasn't much difference between the terms what happened was I think a lot of the security issues and and sort of constraints that we felt seemed to be relaxed particularly after the election so we would be sometimes we would be in the White House and waiting for Obama and there would be very animated conversation and

03:07:56.600 - 03:08:19.720

we were always told to keep it down repeatedly and you know one time he was late and basically they said just go around and and we still had our phones so this was not I think it was in the state dining room or something you just look around and then we'll let you know when it's time to assemble again so it was it was cool because you could take pictures like the red loom and whatever

03:08:21.080 - 03:08:42.440

so so so that was it was a difference the meetings themselves you know at first they were fairly formal and again everything was was people were very cautious and I think it's because it was a new space and I don't in my sense was they were people in the administration were very careful not to make mistakes with the feeling that people would would jump all over

03:08:42.440 - 03:09:06.040

Obama if there was something like that that was my sense and that that really in my mind really kind of dissipated there were times I remember one time getting a phone call from White House there was one of our members said something that wasn't smart and so there was just kind of a all hands on deck if you get asked about this this is the way we would like you to

03:09:06.040 - 03:09:29.720

respond. Interesting was it in his capacity or their capacity in PCAST or was it just something that they off-handed there there's press or something that that made Obama look or the White House look bad or something? I think I don't think anything actually came of it I think it could have been interpreted was one of our members and and I'm not sure exactly who it was I think I know

03:09:29.720 - 03:09:59.720

but I won't say the name because it may not be right um that it would just was it wasn't quite right and and so there was this concern and I think that came from OSTP because John was head of OSTP as well. Right right I mean one of the things that we really benefited from is that John and and Obama I think had a lot of really close connections and I think they liked

03:09:59.720 - 03:10:22.360

each other very much and so there was just a lot of interaction from what I could tell between John Holdren and and Barack Obama and so there was a lot of back and forth and we would get we would hear comments from John Holdren at the beginning of meetings about you know this was going on and the president thinks this and I briefed the president on this so that I think really

03:10:22.360 - 03:10:46.680

helped PCAST was the sense that the person who was leading us John Holdren in fact had the president's ear. Right I've heard it brings up a question I was meaning to ask at some point and I know for us policy folks we think about the dual-headed nature of that position which you just described that there's this John has these two titles assistant to the president for science and technology

03:10:47.480 - 03:11:13.320

and he's also a senate confirmed director of OSTP. Do you I guess a couple questions one do you see any kind of inherent conflicts not the right word but challenges in terms of what you notice John in terms of managing those two hats and then two I know in the Biden administration that person's also been appointed to the cabinet is that something that makes sense to you?

03:11:15.560 - 03:11:40.120

The first question to me it seemed as though having John Holdren head of PCAST director of OSTP and being the president science advisor worked really really well because PCAST really seemed to be working out of OSTP you know we went over to the offices sometimes etc and and having that direct connection with Obama as science advisor I think really made

03:11:40.120 - 03:12:04.040

everything work well I didn't see that there was any that offered any kind of constraints but you know John Holdren is the one that should answer that. What was the second question again? The second is about the cabinet appointment do you think that would have helped Dr. Holdren? Yes that was one of the things that we talked about and I think it would have helped a lot I think particularly

03:12:04.040 - 03:12:36.040

sitting in on cabinet meetings and it would elevate science so that was one of the recommendations that I think was made to the Trump administration and then I was taken up by Biden. Biden was at a number of our meetings. What was your experience like with him? He's very friendly it was actually pretty funny I mean really friendly at one point we had finished a meeting and the president had

03:12:36.040 - 03:13:00.040

to leave for something else and then Joe Biden was there and he looked at us and he just started talking and so we talked to him for quite a bit of time you know and another time he was being driven to to the West Wing and we were outside waiting to go in and he said oh who are you guys you know and he walked over and started talking to everybody so that was our interaction

03:13:00.040 - 03:13:31.560

and then Peacast meetings with the president he would ask questions as well but the thing that's so interesting about about being in a meeting with the president is like he walks in and the whole room focuses on him and it doesn't leave and it doesn't leave that focus until he leaves. It's really quite amazing and it must take a lot of fortitude to do that I mean to

03:13:31.560 - 03:14:03.400

to be that person because everybody is looking at him all the time. Yeah seems that would not seems very stressful yeah fortitude is a good word. Yeah and particularly if one is not an extrovert it must be really hard. Right right I've got a question about so in addition to to Holdren's title and role did you most Peacasts have had external co-chairs

03:14:05.480 - 03:14:30.680

have there did you see a need for so does it matter who and what the background of that person are what was your experience with I know you were very close working relationship with Varmas while he was on the council but in terms of of Lander for instance does it does it matter their background or who they are in terms

03:14:30.680 - 03:14:58.280

of that that co-chair position could they for instance be another member of the administration or do they necessarily need to be stern all that kind of that kind of idea well I to me it seems like a really good idea to have a member of Peacast be the co-chairs and just simply because what you worry about like say if you took somebody from state or from USDA and and put them in that

03:14:58.280 - 03:15:28.360

position they would have such a strong background and and and particularly because they would still be in that position in whatever the USDA or whatever it was that that I think that potentially might actually interfere I think the co-chairs that we had represented different areas and you know someone like Bill Press was just terrific all the time you know and then and then

03:15:30.520 - 03:15:57.080

you want to have someone who's strong in the physical sciences someone who's strong in technology you want to have someone who is strong in health slash biological sciences and so having those kinds of folks as co-chairs I think lends a fresh viewpoint a balanced viewpoint if you've chosen the right people that is not necessarily found within or can't there is more difficult to have

03:15:57.080 - 03:16:21.320

represented from an agency that was my feeling because we were supposed to go in there with fresh eyes and and and sometimes synthesize and go across different agencies and so I just think that's easier if it's somebody from the outside and that doesn't mean that you can't that there aren't terrific people that could do that from the agencies you know I think I think one of the

03:16:21.320 - 03:16:43.480

things that you know I've talked to a number of people and and we all have the same feeling that one of the the benefits of being on peak cast is you develop this tremendously deep respect for people that are in the agencies you know these these people would come in and talk to peak cast and they were totally dedicated they're really really smart and it was very encouraging I mean

03:16:43.480 - 03:17:06.120

it made you feel really good about the government to see the quality of some of these folks and it wasn't just one or two I mean there was people that came and talked to us were just amazingly bright and amazingly dedicated and very very thoughtful so that that was actually a really good part of peak cast and you wouldn't think that ahead of time with that I think other other folks had had

03:17:06.120 - 03:17:29.800

the same thought yeah that's always been reassuring to me I mean even if I disagree with administration positions I know that there are a lot of very bright extraordinarily dedicated people working in across agencies you know I mean the civil service they're still doing the work that they do it's always been reassuring to me but it's hard to know that outside of if

03:17:29.800 - 03:17:56.280

you're not involved in government just how how bright and hardworking these people are yeah your comment about expertise got me thinking another question in terms of balance of the rest of peak cast in terms of their backgrounds I know people come from all over have different backgrounds were there I guess I'm wondering one if you think that peak cast was was balanced or if you think

03:17:56.280 - 03:18:22.040

that there are expertise Obama's peak cast could have used in terms of a background that would have been useful to to the council my sense was that we had a wide range of expertise you know we had Eric Schmidt from Google and people that did computer science and all sorts of different things there were new members that were added on the second term so so there was that flexibility

03:18:22.040 - 03:18:48.280

to really add some some balance and the other thing that I think is really important is that the actual the actual reports were done by a working group and that had a lot of expertise that were called in people that were called in so so I think that was a good balance I didn't feel that there was any area that wasn't represented I I think I think people tried

03:18:48.280 - 03:19:12.120

real hard to do the right thing my my sense was that members of peak cast were were thrilled with the Obama administration and obviously a supporter and were extraordinarily respectful of John Holdren and the work that he did and so I think that I think there was a lot of my sense was that there was a really good spirit there that to try to do as best we could for the country and what are and

03:19:12.120 - 03:19:44.440

do the best thing that we could do for the for the mission of peak cast I'm not sure everybody felt that way but I did. Are there things just as a follow-up are there policy issues you think peak cast is uniquely qualified to be working on kind of regardless of the way of like expertise like in future administrations and two are were there things that you thought you know you really

03:19:44.440 - 03:20:15.000

wanted peak cast to work on but didn't get to for instance? I think the advantage of peak cast is it can be fast and because it's so closely related to to the executive office that it it has that advantage and it has the advantage of it can pull in information from the agencies so it's I think that's interesting and unique because it can do it very quickly because of the executive office

03:20:15.880 - 03:20:41.880

so that that's I think good I think that's an advantage also the other thing that I thought was really important is that peak cast can recommend policy and after spending so you know still still in the national academy we don't recommend do this executive order do this this policy thing um that's easing up a little bit but but that's where I see a big difference I you know with 35

03:20:41.880 - 03:21:03.320

reports there there was a lot of ground covered yeah a lot of ground covered you know I I wondered sometimes a little bit about the physical sciences you know thinking about you know we had the head of NASA and that sort of thing but thinking about some some of them and that would be an area where I guess I would want to check to make sure that we didn't leave anything uncovered

03:21:04.680 - 03:21:30.280

and maybe it's just because I'm not a physical scientist yeah interesting I I I've wondered I mean peak cast historically has been I mean before the Clinton administration it was largely physicists and engineers um so it's been an interesting shift yeah well biology is a big deal now yeah um I'm wondering too and I you know I have more questions about peak

03:21:30.280 - 03:21:54.360

ass and I also want to um there are a number of I know a lot of things were happening you were involved in quite a number of activities and positions during your time on on peak ass you've mentioned um you know the kind of your impression of the dedication of staff you've also mentioned that it was a real learning experience for you did were there other think you know lessons or

03:21:54.360 - 03:22:25.320

things that you took with you from peak ass that that really stuck with you um I think perseverance um so the ag report that really got that took a long time before people saluted on that one and um then and and just being able to not get upset and just continue to to justify the report and getting more and more people that felt it was a good idea I mean that

03:22:25.320 - 03:22:48.200

to me was a real lesson you know that sometimes you you just have to just be calm and and and push your your what your thoughts are in a non-confrontational way we did have a couple of people that were tended to be confrontational um and that that's clearly doesn't work well I think the other thing is is just being able to work well with others particularly when you have

03:22:48.200 - 03:23:15.560

such a broad um representation you know there's there's like Eric Schmidt from Google I mean he's a titan right um and we had Nobel laureates and and Eric Lander and we you know we all know about Eric and he's very opinionated um and also extraordinarily talented wow um so being able to work with that group of people that requires some some some skills I think otherwise you can't do

03:23:15.560 - 03:23:37.960

what you want to do I mean that that's that's the bottom line I don't care if I offend somebody but if I can't get something done that needs to be done that's a real issue and offending people will stop you from doing what you want to do um if you were today chair of of PCAST or co-chair if you had a magic wand would you how would you

03:23:37.960 - 03:24:04.120

are there things that you saw in PCAST that made have worked the council work better um or things that you would have done differently for instance um I think my guess would be first to have a little bit more orientation about the structure of the executive branch and that we were going to be interacting with them um and and this would be for people like me who had never

03:24:04.120 - 03:24:29.400

worked in government um I think someone like Rosina um yeah she she was so immersed in all this and really comfortable and really knew what she was doing but for for some of the rest of us it was a learning experience um and so that that's that's one thing that I think would have would have been a little bit helpful um I think I wonder if doing fewer reports would have been better it

03:24:29.400 - 03:24:58.200

was pretty hectic at the end um and and some of them the pro forma ones were pro forma yeah they and so you wondered I did wonder about you know whether we were really making contribution when we did those nanotechnology ones for example but those were those were kind of some of the thoughts that I had yeah interesting thank you um yeah that's a research question that we've had

03:24:58.200 - 03:25:29.240

in terms of is PCAST the appropriate body for doing those yeah yeah well um I've got I I was going to return a bit um mostly to to think about how you were I know you were also had a full-time job and many other things that you were doing how you managed um I know in 2011 you were uh became director of the Tyson Research Center um could you one talk to me about that position and then

03:25:29.240 - 03:25:56.200

two how you balanced the work you were doing on PCAST and the national academies um with the work you were still doing at at Wash U? Sure um the first thing is um I was uh when I was a vice president of the national academy that is actually a half-time job okay and um so when I was first approached about running for for um vice president um I talked to our chancellor and my and my dean

03:25:57.160 - 03:26:22.360

and said you know this is really problematic I have a full-time job here at Wash U and uh they were extraordinarily I may have said this last time extraordinarily supportive and so um that meant that I didn't have to do undergraduate teaching um I still had a research laboratory and research for me is is is like super fun and um I have had um I'm no longer research active but

03:26:22.360 - 03:26:51.960

I had fantastic graduate students just an amazing group of people that work together so the research just kind of continued um so so and in PCAST we met once every every two months I think I think we met six times a year um and so that wasn't so bad because I was I was in Washington a lot um for for the Tyson Research Center um that was um the previous director had embezzled a

03:26:51.960 - 03:27:18.200

bunch of money and got fired um so they were desperate for somebody and um so I I took over that and that was actually fun I really enjoyed that but then they fired dean and so I was asked if I'd be dean so I became dean um when I was on PCAST and that was um that actually led to me not running for third term for an NAS vice president um because I couldn't do I mean it was really

03:27:18.200 - 03:27:43.240

clear I couldn't do everything you know the other way the other thing is you just you you work hard so so that that was how I dealt with that plus um it's really easy when stuff is interesting I mean to me being on PCAST was such an incredible privilege and as somebody as a scientist it was so interesting and it was so interesting to see how the government worked and that that was just um

03:27:43.240 - 03:28:11.640

it didn't seem like work seemed more like like I mean it was just an honor to do that um but yeah I couldn't I I couldn't be dean vice president of the national academy and serve on PCAST that was that was too much what was uh I mean transitioning into being being dean was that something that you uh looked forward to when you when you came in in the morning was it something

03:28:11.720 - 03:28:41.000

that you enjoyed doing um and what what were your kind of responsibilities is well this is you know the person who had been dean I was asked to be dean when there was that search um committee for that individual um and I said I wasn't interested and then I was on the search committee um he was let go um and so they were desperate for a dean and um I was really reluctant about it

03:28:42.360 - 03:29:07.320

but the fact that WashU uh I mean I've been so supported by WashU um I had a um you know fantastic graduate students a really active research lab lots of great colleagues um and administrative support and then they let me go half time I mean how many people get to do that and and be on the national do the national academy stuff so I felt pretty strongly that I owed WashU something um

03:29:07.960 - 03:29:33.400

and so with with just a huge amount of trepidation I said I would do it for a short you know uh x period of time and um it turned out to be they wanted me to do it for five years and then I figured I would stop um and it turned out that um at first it was terrifying um because it was really complicated and even though I'd been at WashU but I didn't know much about the humanities or anything so

03:29:33.880 - 03:30:04.360

um but then after a couple of months um I became much more comfortable and I would say in general I enjoyed being dean there's about five percent of the stuff that has just got awful um it's just terrible you know people behaving in ways like it it defies any rationality the way some people behave um so that was difficult um but in general um I I like I love the faculty and all their

03:30:04.360 - 03:30:28.440

craziness um you know you get people that are interested in artwork on ancient greek uh vases and they love that we had somebody who collected um roman coins and talked about that you know just just the the diversity of what people do is so interesting um and most of the faculty members by far almost most of the faculty members are dedicated people they they're dedicated to their

03:30:28.440 - 03:30:54.760

area of expertise and at WashU our faculty is dedicated to our undergraduates as well so um there's a lot to being dean that I thought was really really nice um but there were you know other things we had budgetary issues we needed more space we needed more faculty um so I continually was trying to squeeze out more resources to do stuff um and that was that was challenging um

03:30:54.760 - 03:31:21.160

but again terrific staff and so that helped a lot so yeah I was glad that I became dean it was also a very nice way to transition away from having a research laboratory um after like 40 some years of providing support to students and laboratory stuff and everything it was it was time to let it go did your research lab continue for a period while you were dean or was that part of the transition

03:31:21.160 - 03:31:46.600

no it for for a while um I think I had four grad students still and so um they they finished and then then I uh shut it down so it was it was actually a really nice way of transitioning what happens to your just curious about it what happens to your lab space um when you decide to transition from from doing research if all goes really well you hire a distinguished

03:31:46.600 - 03:32:10.760

professor and that he takes that place okay very good and that worked really well because I was in a position to hire that person as dean that's great um well you said you were gonna you were fine serving for a short time but I'm seeing in your CV that you served until 2020 um was that through your own volition or were you at a point did you get into the zone and you were

03:32:12.520 - 03:32:36.600

you know in a good place being dean and wanted to continue on um I was asked to do I I said I didn't want to continue um mainly because you know part of it is also my age I had always thought that I was going to retire at 70 you know hang on for a few years retire at 70 um um so I asked you know to to step down and um again was convinced to continue because

03:32:37.800 - 03:33:01.080

they were uh we were going to hire a new chancellor and so that's a huge transition for the university and they wanted to have um uh stability in arts and sciences while that transition happened right so did you have a good relationship with the incoming chancellor no no I think we did not choose wisely

03:33:03.800 - 03:33:26.760

well I don't have to ask for that but um the the the the relationship that I had one shoes um has been at least previously very fortunate and having a very cohesive administrative group and so everybody's part of the team um we you know obviously you get very angry when you don't get budget and stuff like that we have our differences but there was the

03:33:26.760 - 03:33:51.240

sense of of culture and um all of us moving the university forward and and that seems to have left um but that was part of what was um so pleasant about being dean as you felt like you were actually doing something important and and and really moving the university forward interesting so I've got a couple of the questions about uh but the first one I've

03:33:51.400 - 03:34:17.800

been uh eager to ask is about your um science envoy appointment under uh secretary state Clinton can you talk about that because if that was 2012 yeah so that was for a year and um the idea was to um it was based on uh science diplomacy and that's something that the national academy does really well so for example we uh we obviously

03:34:17.880 - 03:34:44.600

have very strained relationships with um with Iran um and now they're really strained but um when I was a vice president we we would send people over to Iran and um and they would be you know be met with scientists and they'd be moving around the country and they were um in some cases treated like rock stars because it was a Nobel laureate that sort of thing um we met with a whole group

03:34:44.680 - 03:35:11.480

of Iranian scientists in um in France um and uh had a couple of days of of just meetings and interactions and so that kind of diplomacy and the fact that scientists tend to collaborate with people in across the globe so so that the idea was to use that and it came from Bill Kohlweiser who was um in state uh but was also uh I think executive director of of the nrc um so he knew

03:35:11.480 - 03:35:39.160

about all of those activities um so so the idea was to do that kind of interaction um to go and develop friends and if possible develop some kind of collaborations that's really hard to do with a single visit in in in a year um there there was there was um some some collaborations did develop from other folks but um I I there's a little bit of research collaboration but I don't

03:35:39.160 - 03:36:04.440

think it was exactly what a strong connection between the two countries that I visited um so I went to uh Columbia um and I was familiar with Columbia because um one of my grad students actually did his field work there and one of my other grad students was an undergrad at the University of Bogota so there were I had already researched connections there and I had served

03:36:04.440 - 03:36:29.560

there's the Center for International Tropical Agriculture I had served on a review committee there and I also had lots of interactions with some of the scientists at Seattle so so what we did was it was really interesting uh flew into Bogota and was met by people from the U.S. Embassy it's one of those those those cars you know that that's that's hardened for explosions and stuff

03:36:29.560 - 03:36:56.440

like that because it was such a you know it had previously been a really dangerous place and things had just settled down in Columbia um I went to Bogota I went to Medellin and to Collie and uh gave a research talk um met with university presidents and um basically heard a lot about how everybody was so happy that the um the relationship between the the the um the FARC the

03:36:57.000 - 03:37:18.840

uh guerrillas and and the government has had improved and that there was going to be some compromise we went to Medellin which was when I understand just a terrible terrible place they talked about bodies being found in the river in the morning the river that runs through Medellin and um people were just abolient they're going out um and saying we can now go out to dinner at

03:37:18.840 - 03:37:43.720

night we can walk around at night and it's this gorgeous city it's it's high elevation it's sunny it's beautiful I visited in both places and I went to Uruguay in both places um some uh high schools so uh met with with the teachers and with um with with various students and answer their questions and they were really blunt questions um and with with with one of the

03:37:43.720 - 03:38:15.800

instructors I exchanged some some stem material so he was he was really interested in receiving that did the kids ask questions about US politics no they didn't they wanted to know what my parents thought about me being a scientist and not uh being a traditional um uh wife and so I'd explain them well I am a wife and I have children and but if that they were there was there there was

03:38:15.960 - 03:38:41.000

levels of personal questions um and then there was some uh a little bit about US policy but they they were more interested in I think the social dynamics um and the school in in Medellin was actually in an area that had a lot of gangs and so the school was there to try to really pull the kids out of that environment um and they were there I think uh they were very bright kids

03:38:41.000 - 03:39:05.240

very forthcoming um and really interested um so I gave a talk there this this was fun so giving a talk as you know you know what do you do um Columbia is amazing in terms of its biodiversity it's like in this international gem and so that was what I focused on told them they were living in a really special place in a special country and and that that was with hindsight was a good choice

03:39:05.800 - 03:39:33.240

interesting yeah sounds really sounds really fun it was it was fascinating particularly Columbia because we went to so many different places um and then Uruguay was very interesting as well because that's such a oh in Uruguay we met with the US ambassador and she was a big advocate for Hillary Clinton so there's a lot of conversations offline about that and then went to various

03:39:33.240 - 03:40:01.640

research institutes there it was very interesting because um the US had announced this initiative on the brain about the brain and um there was some resentment um among some of the the people that how does this happen how does the US just decide to do this we work on the brain why aren't we part of this you know so so that was a interesting conversation yeah the brain initiative when did

03:40:01.640 - 03:40:30.280

that uh was that announced it was sometime during sometime yeah um so so that's just general discussions of how you do do priorities and and and when there's a priority you know what kind of international connections should there be um should you uh socialize this internationally and the answer is you know you can't hit every country right had you mentioned you had students

03:40:30.280 - 03:40:54.280

that had ties to columbia had you been there before or spent time in south america i had been there before i don't speak spanish so i don't understand why i was the ambassador in latin america but that's another thing um uh yeah i had been there um actually quite a long trip when i did was part of this review team for their the center for international tropical agriculture

03:40:54.280 - 03:41:22.920

for their genetic resources unit and one of my students who was born in the us he was actually doing his fieldwork at the time so we went up into the andy's mountains to this amazing region called the paramus and it's incredible because the plants there are adapted to this crazy environment so you're up really high in the andy's and the sun is in the uv and it's

03:41:23.240 - 03:41:45.240

summer during the day and then because you're up so high and there's no clouds it's winter it's a summer every day winter every night and the plants have all of these amazing adaptations so you get a member of the sunflower family which looks like the sunflower except it's covered in fur and you get members of the violet family they're little teeny tiny plants and they build this hard

03:41:45.240 - 03:42:12.040

mound and in the middle of the mound there's decomposition which warms them you know so so just an amazing environment he was studying some of these things cool what are what are those sunflowers called um what is their name just do andy's paramus sunflowers you'll see they're adorable they're so cute cool um very cool so that it was it was just the the one trip to each

03:42:12.040 - 03:42:37.720

country as part of your envoy just one trip did you have to when you returned did you have to did you present i don't know to the state department or were there yeah there's beforehand i met with i went to the state department a couple of times met with the columbian ambassador to the us went to to the embassy um not so much with uruguay oh the uruguay i met the president of the country

03:42:38.280 - 03:43:03.640

oh wow yeah so so that was uruguay was really interesting because he was very interested in making sure that students were well educated that was a huge thing for uruguay and um and there there's just a lot of of interest in and like little newspapers and things like that so it's it's an intellectually engaged um a lot of people are engaged so he was was

03:43:03.640 - 03:43:26.200

making sure that people had the kids had iPads and that there was good schooling so we talked a lot about that when i talked to him um we talked a lot about agriculture um and he was one of these people the man of the people um so instead of wearing a suit and everything he was wearing Birkenstocks and a big beard and stuff like that so he was an extremely engaging person we had a

03:43:26.200 - 03:43:53.480

really good conversation and this was after you returned no this was this was during the visit to uruguay um and it was weird because we were just sitting you know i was across his desk and we were just chatting and of course there was cameras and all this other stuff going on i guess for pr but a very comfortable person cool very cool um like um i had another kind of major position i

03:43:53.480 - 03:44:22.200

wanted to to ask about and that's that's triple as um yeah and how that how that came about i mean that's a huge deal um it's a major organization um and i know you were your president in 2016 so i'm wondering about uh how that position came about is there i'm not sure about the process is there an election or yeah there's an election um so somebody nominated me um they have

03:44:22.200 - 03:44:55.800

a nominating committee and then um uh two people are chosen to run um and uh so that's what happened and and i agreed to run for triple as the executive director at that time was um how can i forget his name um i knew the executive director really really well and um so we we had a um a close relationship we served together on ellen leshner how could i forget that name ellen so we we served

03:44:55.800 - 03:45:23.080

on on some committees together and everything and and i i really really like ellen a lot um so i think that was how i i got engaged in that and then we had just he actually had then stepped down and we had a new director um and uh so there was a lot of orientation and and looking at at at previous ways things were done and trying to get things a little more um uh uh more more subtle it

03:45:23.080 - 03:45:49.640

was rush holt and um he came from congress actually um although it is a as a physicist um and so there was a lot of new stuff going on there was a concern about the there were budgetary issues that were really um concerning um the way that triple as ran was basically off of advertising from science magazine and now everything is electronic and that advertising revenue actually

03:45:49.640 - 03:46:17.880

declined and that's a serious issue for the um for the organization and i think that's all been solved and uh so so that was that was it was very very interesting and then triple as it does so many things um you know the triple as fellows um they're all over washington that's just an amazing program something that the country really really benefits from so there that was that was very

03:46:17.880 - 03:46:39.080

interesting being particularly as president was interesting one of the weird things about something like triple as it was a three year you know you're you're on the council um you're you're president elect and then you're your president and um and then you leave and and so it's it's really kind of hard because we were so enmeshed in so many different things and so you

03:46:39.080 - 03:47:04.760

always kind of wonder well what happened um and uh that that's not unusual when you change positions or step down what does really talented people in the organization yes i i understand it to be that it does so many things like like you said i'm what what what is the kind of respective rules of the executive officer and the president and how did you had you met rush vote before and

03:47:04.760 - 03:47:28.440

and what was your kind of working i think basically the executive officer runs a place and the president's you know every year there's a new president um there's more stability with the council but um i i think it really does tend to be the executive director that sets the tone for everything um and you know if there i guess the the council is sort of like a board of trustees

03:47:28.440 - 03:47:57.800

and in in some cases you know i think there's a lot of active involvement we were pretty active with rush halt um and uh i think my understanding was that the council was um much more uh less involved with alan leshner because he was um just had so much experience and really was very strong force um i'm not sure how to phrase this well so i'm in 2016 of course trump comes into the

03:47:57.800 - 03:48:23.720

presidency did that um could you free to answer how obviously or not answer but um did that change triple as's strategy or things that it was doing or yes um so so basically what what hold what rush halt wanted to do was to make triple as a force for science and to be the public face of science and so um we were very much involved in you know the march some of the marches um in dc

03:48:24.680 - 03:48:51.400

um and there was a real sense that we needed to be much more active um and so so that that was a response and um i think you know of course everybody was quite concerned um what because trump unlike obama trump did not seem to be um that interested in science and the fact that it took him forever to point p-cast and that sort of thing is it was probably a reflection of that

03:48:51.400 - 03:49:17.000

but yeah there was a lot of concern would you uh yeah i'm not sure how to phrase it i mean i'm wondering so i'm thinking about um and now i'm forgetting his name but the the government relations officer at a ps i remember being kind of forced to step down after he he made some statement about assisting trump and there being this idea that you know um i'll think of it in a

03:49:17.000 - 03:49:39.320

sec but there's basically this controversy about a ps wanting to basically remove itself and not necessarily be a political organization or necessarily hope the trump agenda or whatever it was in terms of science i guess i'm wondering how triple s walked that line in terms of not you know still being in you know a professional membership organization that does advocacy on

03:49:39.320 - 03:50:09.560

behalf of its membership versus i don't know how it responds to um uh political issues with for with regards to um its constituency um yeah and i i wasn't there long enough to to see um much of a response to trump um i i think uh i i know that um sometimes the conversations i have because it was part of so many groups it's hard to remember which one where the conversation was

03:50:09.560 - 03:50:35.640

but i know there was a lot of concern um about um if you were asked to serve in the trump white house like on p-cast or something like that would you do it right and um and so i think i've had this conversation with every organization and i think initially a lot of people felt that it would be important if you were asked to to serve because you would be serving the country you could perhaps

03:50:35.640 - 03:51:01.560

do um do something to move aside the scientific agenda along and if the country asks you to serve you should you should serve and i think i sort of felt that way initially i think as things started to move along it was really clear that um that science wasn't particularly being listened to particularly being listened to and moreover you were um going to be um uh in some cases vilified

03:51:01.560 - 03:51:28.520

by your colleagues your scientific colleagues and and you also and in interacting with with trump could be very negative um so i think people's feeling about how to interact with the trump white house changed i think quite a bit this is not the result of a survey or anything so yeah no no not at all i i have just been i've been curious just because um uh yeah just walking

03:51:28.520 - 03:51:53.560

that line in terms of being you know the face for science also being kind of like not a political entity but just you know you want to support i don't know uh just just curious about kind of the political nature of triple a s and and what that meant under trump was my this is i i i don't know as it as it as it progressed i know initially people said yes of course i would serve and um that

03:51:54.200 - 03:52:20.920

changed very quickly when it became quite clear what you would what would happen if you did um best would be you'd just be ignored but there could potentially could be some other consequences as well right well he eventually did stand up a p-cast and um yeah well and but i do know from conversations that people were asked and they turned it down eventually

03:52:22.040 - 03:52:53.160

and i i think um i probably would have done the same thing you know after a couple of years whereas initially um i felt very strongly when the government asks you to serve you serve right well in uh so in 2020 your tenure as dean um wraps up i guess i'm curious about what you what your role is now and um what you're what you're working on and um didn't have watched you and

03:52:53.160 - 03:53:20.840

um kind of your um plans for the the rest of your career i know you said you wanted to retire at 70 but you continue to to work right i missed that one so um i after the year um after uh stepping down as dean then you have a year sabbatical and i had planned you know this was covid i had planned to go to visit my research colleagues in um in china in taiwan and in tai

03:53:20.840 - 03:53:48.280

land where i've done a lot of work on rice um and that obviously didn't happen so um i i basically spent the time uh working on a new course a course science first um science for a policy in agriculture and the environment and so i worked on that course um and did a lot of a couple of other sorts of little things um and continue to serve um i i'm still chair of the board of life

03:53:48.280 - 03:54:11.960

sciences at the at the academies um so that's you know all of the whole portfolio portfolio on life sciences um i chair that board um and then this so and then after that one year then i did start teaching again so i taught the science policy course and i'm going to be teaching a course on um plants people in the environment which is a really really fun course to teach

03:54:13.640 - 03:54:36.360

it's for non-science majors and so um when i first taught this this was a long time ago because i hadn't taught in a long time um the the class is sitting there and they don't want to be there because it's the dreaded science requirement and my goal is is to plants are so much fun and they're so interesting um and it was an hour and a half class and so what i do is i always bring

03:54:36.360 - 03:55:01.240

something in for them to eat that's related to whatever the lesson is so the the first day of class i mean it's shameless right it's just really pandering um the first class um i i'd make these muffins i get this one recipe of muffins and then i would substitute four different flowers and each student would get um four muffins and i'd say that don't eat them really fast break

03:55:01.240 - 03:55:24.200

them open smell them um what are you eating what part of the plant why are they different and of course after that you have them um and so the class had been has been really really fun to teach and i'm looking forward to i'm working on that now and that'll be next fall so other things um you know i i'm serving on university and um and uh arts and sciences search committees i'm on

03:55:24.200 - 03:55:47.720

the executive committee the biology department you know that kind of usual stuff which is really easy um i'm still working a lot uh in addition with the board on life sciences um i'm now uh chair of the board on this small foundation supporters of agriculture research and that's been very interesting because we've made a transition in the president and um the the new

03:55:47.720 - 03:56:16.520

president is someone that has some real ambition and really good connections and so that's becoming very exciting um that we have support from the gates foundation and from the mcdonnell foundation so that and then um a couple committees on the uh at the nas and then um just recently beginning in january i'm co-chairing a uh uh round table on climate change and national security

03:56:16.520 - 03:56:44.440

and so that is supported by the office of the director of national intelligence and um basically it's to bring members of the intelligence community like from cia dia and um odini and state and a couple of other agencies um and climate scientists together to evaluate um some of the the issues for national security and then the focus is international um it's been a real heavy lift being co-chair

03:56:44.440 - 03:57:13.800

there's uh just just a lot of work but it's um really really interesting um and i find it very energizing who is your your co-chair karen sito she's from yale university she's an environmental scientist um works on some urban things she's an academy member and um i think has had a lot of experience chairing as well the challenge with this is you've got a huge diversity of people that

03:57:13.800 - 03:57:40.680

are in the room you have members of the intelligence community that are there and then um scientists everything from um physical scientists oceanography to uh to to social issues in in in in urban environments so so there's there's a lot there's a lot of diversity um and i've chaired committees like this before i was chair of the uh the gulf research program and when you have all

03:57:40.680 - 03:58:05.560

these kinds of different people in the room that makes it um a little more challenging to get uh to to move things forward because everybody has a different view so so it's it's been we've done a lot of work to try to harmonize um things like terminology and um harmonize what the goals are so uh that's it but it's been it's been really really interesting um

03:58:07.880 - 03:58:33.160

is the work you're doing all uh classified it will be um we're we're still getting um our our clearances is there is it set up like p-caste where there's a co-chair that's a uh member of the administration or is it are you guys sharing a government uh it's it's it's um it's the national academies so academy sorry academy yeah it's not it's not out of the government it's um through

03:58:33.160 - 03:58:59.000

the national academies and so so uh that's i think that's why karen and i are co-chairing because we're both academy members i understand both head head but most of the members on the working group are are not interesting um i had a question about your policy course if that's okay sure yeah okay uh do you also have to make them muffins um

03:59:00.600 - 03:59:30.040

i did not i gave them something better i gave them zoom meetings with um marcia mignott and ellen leshner and holden thorp um because these are all my buddies and um and so they got to uh to to hear from all of these folks one of them was a warren mirror and he was involved um in the epa when the ozone issue came out and so he um so there was a theoretical paper by um

03:59:31.320 - 03:59:55.560

surewood and and melina and uh it's theoretically said that we think that cfcs are destroying the ozone layer but it wasn't no experiment there wasn't much information but it was a theoretical paper and so warren was involved in the epa at this and he wasn't even sure about the paper then there and so he related to how all of this happened what the scientists were saying

03:59:55.560 - 04:00:21.560

how the public received this potential and how ultimately it led to the montreal protocol and so the class got to hear this story about it and um it was it was just really interesting marcia mignott blew the class away um she's president of the natural academy of sciences and um she uh told a lot of personal stories which the class was really interested in um

04:00:21.560 - 04:00:47.880

she's a licensed underwater explosive person and uh so that got the class really going in her comment but she never experienced sexual harassment after people knew that she could explode things it's funny um yeah i had i got to have lunch with her once right when i was finishing uh my degree and uh yeah i was like how can i get involved in policy

04:00:47.880 - 04:01:17.400

and she told me to rung for congress so which is interesting um yeah well that's fun did you so are these students are they um are they science stem stem mostly no most i had a couple i had someone in math someone in biology and someone in chemistry but they're mostly environmental studies majors and double majors with political science i see um and the students are just deeply

04:01:17.400 - 04:01:43.000

deeply committed to the environment um it was i had 19 students there was one dud the rest were just amazing um and we had the there was so we would have a presentation either i'd give a lecture or um i'd have somebody come in on zoom and then we would discuss you know that then that would end and then we would have a discussion for about 20 minutes and and the stuff that came out was so

04:01:43.000 - 04:02:06.920

interesting one of the things that they were concerned about and came back to repeatedly is they all want to work in the environment they all want to do good and how can you work in an area where you know that you're not going to be able to solve something that you are going to be in dealing with with information that is so depressing you know climate change and and pollution and all

04:02:06.920 - 04:02:30.440

these other sorts of things and um so we we talked a lot about you know how how can you maintain the mental fortitude to work in an area where you know there's going to be some bad news and it's going to be hard to see the result of your work um and so uh i mean i told them the way that i deal with stuff like that is sometimes uh progress moves you know by a large group of people

04:02:30.440 - 04:02:58.760

a big wheel and you're a you're an important cog in the wheel and i think sometimes some of them thought they could just solve climate change by themselves and that's that's sweet but not gonna happen you've got to work on teens yeah it's sweet somehow it's heartening to to hear that from young young people um you know that they really are just so enamored with it that they they think that

04:02:59.400 - 04:03:23.960

you know they'll go through and be able to just tackle it by themselves yeah well and and they were they were also dedicated um to it i mean that was what was so interesting is that this class was truly truly interested um in the environment and an agriculture mainly towards an environmental aspect of it had you was this your first time teaching the class yeah yeah it's a

04:03:23.960 - 04:03:48.360

brand new class how did you uh go about creating the course material and kind of recruiting students was it something that you or people just you know heard the class and um wanted to be involved yeah they just they just signed up um so i was real happy with the enrollment the limit was 20 and i had 19 students um the the course developed over that year of a sabbatical because i wasn't

04:03:48.360 - 04:04:13.800

able to go to where i wanted to go um and a lot of it was just thinking and i started out um i started out with one idea for the class and because i didn't have you know i didn't have so many things on my plate i could actually think a little bit and so i changed the nature of it one of the um and part of it was um i also am on the um advisory board i don't even know what

04:04:13.800 - 04:04:43.160

it's called um for this thing it's um Missouri um Science and Technology Initiative and they have a little bit of support from AAAS to do this thing about uh science and outreach and initiative anyway what they do is they have um they provide scientific support for the the Missouri legislature which of course is very polarized um so they they came in um the president came in and we

04:04:43.160 - 04:05:06.600

we talked about how you provide information to a government um agency uh or how you provide information to a legislature and they most says we absolutely never say anything about policy we don't do anything political we say this is the status of science this is what we don't know and here are the references and here are the data um and then we heard from the National Academy

04:05:06.600 - 04:05:29.160

which has sort of a similar approach and um then from AAAS which uh is no we do do policy and then Holden Thorpe the editor of science said yeah well i wrote an article Trump Live so they they heard this big expanse of different things anyway so one of the assignments i don't know why i'm rattling on one of the assignments was um for them to do their own legislative brief

04:05:29.160 - 04:05:53.880

and um so the and then i said and if you want we can um we can submit them to most and so you can have a publication as an undergraduate um doing this this policy thing and so that that was all kind of really fun to do um but that involved sort of just thinking about it and thinking about um about opportunities and and trying to be you know because i know all these folks um

04:05:54.520 - 04:06:17.800

and that it was really nice for that for them to participate in the class and so that was um and the reviews of the class were really good that's great yeah i just thank you for sharing that i we teach a similar uh policy course for STEM grads at Rice and so i'm always curious when people have these little or not little but state initiatives um and and yes you know the students

04:06:17.800 - 04:06:44.680

could do um either a local one in Missouri they could do one in their own state and i had a couple of international students and so somebody did how do you shift Shanghai Shanghai to electrical vehicles and just you know the the and just the real data on that it was really interesting so and then at the end um they had a much larger project to do and at the end um i would have two or three students

04:06:45.480 - 04:07:07.240

do presentations in a class about their work and the students absolutely loved that part of the class and they the reason that they loved it is because i think the class had really gelled together and they were interested and respectful of their other students and wanted to know what their interests were and so that was um that was a surprise to me how how well that went and i

04:07:07.240 - 04:07:27.880

think a lot of students in the evaluation said that was actually their favorite part that and Marsha McNutt they love Marsha I um this is kind of a general question but i i'm curious if you've noticed over time at at your at your years at WashU did you have grad students say you know 30 years ago that

04:07:27.880 - 04:07:49.880

were very very interested in doing policy or getting in government has there been a shift in what what students or what your grad students go off and do or what their their interests are yeah i i've noticed a shift um there was there's a cultural shift in science um i think when i first started at WashU and i think probably it's still in a number of laboratories

04:07:49.880 - 04:08:12.280

you're there to do research and to either get a position at an r1 university or work at a company or do something like that um and anyone who wants to do anything different that's not appropriate you shouldn't be here and that was clearly the way it was and and i i think pretty good i met at the school we see some of that as well um i had a grad student um

04:08:13.480 - 04:08:43.240

maybe 20 years ago who came and said i i wanted um i want a phd i need a phd to do policy and i want to do policy and um it was uh maybe 15 years ago um and anyway her name is Genevieve Croft and so she got her phd and um i arranged for her to do various sorts of things like um be a marzian fellow at the um at the national academies and then she was a triple a fellow and actually

04:08:43.880 - 04:09:10.280

worked in peakcast and when i was um and she worked in ostp and so we would meet together that was very strange um but wonderful so so and then there's more and more students that are interested like that so i think there has been a shift um one of the things i may teach next year is sort of a similar science policy class to our graduate students um and and again

04:09:10.280 - 04:09:33.240

sort of similar to the course that i taught before so i think there has been a shift and and we've we've seen more students that want to go into policy it's still hard i think it's still hard from in a lot of laboratories the the the pis are not real thrilled with that and we had we have this division of biology and biomedical sciences which is across the

04:09:33.240 - 04:10:00.200

medical school and all of the the other schools for phds and biology and and biomedical sciences and in order for um Genevieve to take the time off to go be a marzian fellow um it required an executive uh decision um and and now that's changed now now people are talking about having little little internships and and actually putting that in as part of the um the graduate experience

04:10:02.360 - 04:10:24.760

which i think is a great idea yeah for those students that are interested i mean i wouldn't have been interested when i was a grad student i was just straight lab rat right yes in here yeah and then then you realize there's more yeah what i mean what do you think um what do you think is pushing or you know driving this this shift that you're seeing

04:10:25.720 - 04:10:52.600

my sense is there there there's concern about um i think there's social concerns among our students that um that that policy i think there's concern about the environment um and and concern about all kinds of policy issues and that's one of the ways of dealing with it is actually going into policy um and then i so i think there's a pull i also think there's a push um that uh i remember

04:10:52.600 - 04:11:19.000

one of my grad students um who went into policy and went into other areas said that she absolutely did not want to have a job like mine where i run around like a chicken with my head cut off all the time so i always think about that um it's not an unreasonable description sometimes yeah yeah you know it's not it's not a life for everybody i mean for me you know having to come up with all

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of the support for to keeping this lab going that's a lot of pressure um and and you know the one thing you know after you've served on on any kind of grant panel is that you're not going to get funded all the time um so it's it's it it is there are some negative aspects of it on the other hand you get to do research which is super fun thank you yeah i uh i don't want to be on record calling

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my graduate advisor a chicken but my impression too was uh that it was really an incredibly challenging job you know you you get this um you know in in cartoons or whatever you see professors is just being these you know they have the greatest job like they're out doing science and stuff like that and then like the actual the actuality of of being a research

04:12:08.040 - 04:12:26.520

professor at a university like washiu or rice is just it's so intense all the time you know yeah you know and one of the things that at first i never resonated with and that was you know all the regulations and the forms and everything do you have to you have to fill out and i remember 20 years ago people saying oh it's just taking up too much of my time and i always thought that

04:12:26.520 - 04:12:54.200

was kind of silly not anymore um not anymore the you have to train on so many different things and i fill out at least four conflict of interest forms for the university which i don't understand um yeah so so i i do i do see that we had the chemical regulations you have to have a book every chemical log everything in um growing plants we worked with weedy rice and the USDA

04:12:54.200 - 04:13:23.800

wanted us to treat it like a biohazard you know so so just really weird stuff and it became that that added to the burden i know it's been uh uh the subject for all i was going through some older white house files uh last week from the first first bush administration there was a major point of uh something that dr brownley was working on was just that you know regulatory

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burden for for academic research and this is 1990 or whatever so yeah yeah yeah it's it's gotten really bad yeah i mean to the point where um not only does it take a lot of time but you really feel restricted in what you can do right you know and it's it's it's double-edged because you know i i think about biology labs and chemists the chemists are so far ahead of us

04:13:46.360 - 04:14:16.120

on terms of safety and and all of that biology labs um they it's it takes a lot to get people to really realize that they have just as many issues as a chemistry lab does you know so i i i really applaud that that the safety things yeah my four conflict of interest forms and um you know and then the training sessions good god um we had one this is really out of school we had one

04:14:16.360 - 04:14:47.320

which was to prevent sexual harassment and honest to god the cover picture was a woman sitting down looking at a computer with a man behind her and it's like classic yeah it's not the way you do it yeah and well uh yeah it's a tough it's a tough one um i the videos are i've yet to experience a uh a coi you know tutorial that was helpful to me but i know that they're

04:14:47.320 - 04:15:12.520

just checking boxes yeah the thing is that that coi in fact is important and and people do have conflicts and you know i understand i always understood them with the national academy um that if you're if you're on a study section you better um if you have any conflict you better declare it and let it be managed um because you could just destroy the whole result of a study

04:15:13.080 - 04:15:35.720

right right that was a particular issue when we're doing a genetic modification of of crops that we had to be really careful you know we wanted people that were and on both sides of the fence but you had one we didn't want the people that were extreme we wanted to make sure that everybody had had their their biases if they had any we're known right right well some yeah

04:15:35.720 - 04:16:07.560

it's important for it to all be above be above ground yeah well we we've been going about uh two hours um so i've been remiss about asking dave if i'm missing anything in terms of questions or or things like that no no nothing at all thanks dave um well at this point i'm kind of out of um specific questions so what we i'm out of answers okay well what we normally do is just

04:16:07.560 - 04:16:32.920

turn it to to you and ask if you have questions um or if there are things that we should have asked about and and didn't throughout the the interview i don't think so i mean this is far more thorough than i would have ever imagined okay okay well thank you i'm glad i'm glad you feel that way well and i think you know and i would like to see the transcripts or whatever it gets it gets um

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just to make sure that i don't say something about someone and um yeah yeah yeah you have uh dave can elaborate on you have full control over that and of course the the transcript will go through we'll do a initial run doing basic grammar and cleaning it up fact checking stuff like that but then it goes to you and then you have control if there are no more specific questions why don't

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we turn off the recording and then we can chat about the process enjoy thank you