Erik De Clercq was born in Dendermonde, Belgium in 1941. Some of his earliest memories as a child involve World War II and the festivities when Belgium was liberated. His mother was a tailor and his father worked as a…

Mike Bonney was born in Massachusetts and spent his life between his birthplace and Maine. His father was a commercial banker and was the CEO of the largest bank in Maine. From a young age, Bonney aspired to become a…

Stephanie Bailey was born in Northern California and was raised on a farm in Windsor, California, with her two sisters. Growing up, Bailey was expected to help with chores around the farm and was also a member of her…

Timothy P. Croughan was born in Santa Cruz, California, in 1950. His parents were from the Midwest, moved to California as children, met and married in college, and moved to Santa Cruz upon graduation. Croughan was one…

Charles (Charley) G. Cochrane begins his interview discussing his family, his childhood, and his adolescence in Berkeley, California. His father emigrated from England and attended the University of California,…

John Crowley was born and raised in northern New Jersey. His father was a cop who died on duty when Crowley was seven years old. Later in his life, Crowley attended business school and became a consultant, moving to San…

Larry Bock grew up in Chappaqua, New York. His father was a stockbroker with Bear Stearns Companies and his mother was a professional chef. Bock attended Bowdoin College in Maine, where he majored in biochemistry. He…

Dennis Gillings was born in London, England near the end of World War II. His father was a wholesale fish merchant who fought in the D-Day invasion, while his mother was a homemaker and milliner. During his adolescence,…

Charles Cooney was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and attended Upper Darby High School. Growing up, he would often play with electronics, inspired by his father who was a systems analyst for General Electric. After…

Annette Campbell-White was born and raised in New Zealand, but due to her father’s job as a mining engineer, she attended university in South Africa. She studied engineering, but not seeing a career path in the…

Dennis Fenton was born and raised in Mineola on Long Island, New York. He attended Manhattan College in the Bronx and later received his PhD in microbiology from Rutgers University in 1977. Motivated by his father’s…

Robert Kamen was born in Brooklyn, New York, but raised in Queens. His father was a stockbroker, and his mother was an author and homemaker. Kamen was interested in science from an early age, working in a lab cleaning…

Peter Meldrum was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. He attended the University of Utah, where he received his bachelor’s in chemical engineering. After graduating, Meldrum joined the army, where he was a lieutenant in the…

Joseph Panetta was raised in Syracuse, New York, where he attended Le Moyne College for his undergraduate degree. While he originally wanted to attend medical school, he opted to join the work force instead and began…

Martin Karplus was born in Vienna, Austria, one of two sons. Karplus’ father was in banking; his mother was a dietician at the family’s Fango-Heilanstalt Clinic. During the Nazi occupation of Austria, the family moved…

Charles F. Lettow grew up as a “Sputnik kid,” choosing to study chemical engineering as an undergraduate. He held one job in the chemical industry before serving in the U.S. Army; after his military service he moved…

Alison Taunton-Rigby was born and educated in Great Britain. Her father was a scientist for the British government and her mother was a physiotherapist. She attended the University of Bristol for her undergraduate and…

Andrew Barnes was born in the northern suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. His father was a chemical engineer at Abbott Laboratories, which inspired him to pursue a chemical engineering degree from Purdue University. While…

Cam Garner grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia. His father was diagnosed with cancer when Garner was a child, and later died when he was seventeen years old. Garner struggled academically in grade school, though became…

Steve Duzan was born in Oregon in 1941, though he and his family moved to Seattle, Washington when he was ten years old. He was raised by a single mother after the death of his father. His mother worked as the assistant…

Peter Drake was born in St. Louis, Missouri. His father was the head of manufacturing for Beech Aircraft before he became one of the founders of McDonnell Aircraft. Drake attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine,…

Carlo Croce was born in Milan, Italy and studied medicine at the Sapienza University of Rome. While he initially came to the United States to do medicine at Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation, he ultimately worked…

Thomas Wiggans grew up in Fredonia, Kansas, a small town with just a few thousand residents. Both his grandfather and father ran a local drugstore, which Wiggans worked in during his adolescence. This led to Wiggans not…

Garren Bohlin was a partner at Arthur Anderson LLP in 1980, where he did general business consulting. He was contacted by Mirza Mehdi of the Genetics Institute, who worked with Gabriel Schmergel. Mehdi asked Bohlin if…

Richard Stein starts this interview by reflecting on the New York City schools which provided a real stimulus, especially in mathematics and science, to him and his contemporaries. At Brooklyn Technical High School, he…