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…

Dorit Hanein was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, but grew up in Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil, where her family was engaged in an Israeli-Dutch program to foster soybean cultivation. She and her sister attended all-girl, Roman…

Susan McConnell grew up in Crown Point, Indiana, the oldest of four children. Her father was a metallurgical engineer and her mother a nurse. Both were college graduates, as are McConnell’s three siblings. McConnell has…

Marilyn Pike grew up in Westchester, New York. Her father was a chemical engineer who was interested in desalination, even patenting a freeze-drying process for Maxwell House Coffee. Her mother was a housewife. Pike…

Frank Costantini grew up in New York City, one of three sons. His father was a chemical engineer, his mother an artist. He was good in math and liked quantitative, objective subjects. He matriculated at Yale University,…

Judith M. White grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When she was in junior high school, her family moved to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. She is one of two children of an insurance agent and a school librarian.…

Anthony Brown was one of two sons of a father in the Royal Navy and a mother of Armenian descent who spoke several languages. The family lived in a number of places primarily on the south coast of England. Brown…

Timothy L. Manser grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, one of two children. His father was a lawyer and his mother mostly a housewife. He liked school; though he says the schools were not very good, he did have a good biology…

Caroline F. Kisker grew up in West Berlin, West Germany, where she attended the John F. Kennedy German-American grammar school. After completing her Abitur, Kisker planned to study medicine, but due to the complicated…

Marjorie A. Oettinger grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, the younger of two children. Her father was a professor at Harvard University; her mother taught biology at Harvard University; and her brother went to Harvard…

Ellen Puré grew up in Queens, New York, the youngest of three children. Her parents were Polish survivors of concentration camps. Her father was a carpenter who designed and built store interiors. Always interested in…

Karin M. Reinisch grew up in Massachusetts, one of two daughters. Her father was a physicist, a professor at University of Massachusetts; her mother was a housewife. Her parents were immigrants from Germany, and…

Yolanda Sanchez was born in El Paso, Texas, but grew up in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. She was one of five children whose father was an architect, now a teacher, and a housewife. Sanchez spent a year in New Zealand,…

Jonathan D. Goldberg was born and raised in Hertfordshire, England, one of two children. From the outset, it was clear to his parents that Goldberg was talented academically and so they encouraged him from a young age…

Michael A. Farrar was born in Washington, DC, where his father was a chemist for the Bureau of Standards. Farrar's mother, a housewife, was German, and Farrar and his younger brother and sister grew up bilingual. As his…

Jason G. Cyster was born and raised in Western Australia, the younger of two brothers. Cyster lived and worked on a farm for much of his early life. His father worked as a hired laborer on others' farms before buying…

A joint interview with Charles N. Cole and Inder Verma.

Charles N. Cole begins his interview by discussing the reasons behind his decision to attend Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Cole's interest in…

Hao Wu's oral history begins with a discussion of her childhood in China, during which her family was separated and forced to relocate to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. Despite the difficulties…

Pouné Saberi was born in Tehran, Iran, and experienced the 1979 Iranian Revolution as a child. Her family left Iran in the mid-1980s during its war with Iraq and settled briefly in Boston. Pouné’s parents and younger…

David Baltimore begins the series of interviews describing his interest in biology as a high-school student and throughout his college years at Swarthmore. During college, he spent a summer at Cold Spring Harbor where…

Kathleen L. Collins grew up in Norwell, Massachusetts, a small town near Boston, the second of four children. Her father was a teacher and an assistant principal. Her mother was a nurse until she stayed home with her…

Chavela M. Carr grew up near Indianapolis, Indiana in a large family. From early childhood she was interested in school, finding the math-based sciences interesting. Due to a high school human genetics course, Carr…

Frances M. Brodsky grew up in Princeton, New Jersey. Her father worked at ETS (Educational Testing Service), a job he began shortly after the company was founded. Her mother, an artist, was a professor at Rutgers and…

William Braell grew up in Palmyra, a small town in New York, the oldest of five children. His father was a general practitioner, his mother a housewife. He was always interested in science and always had chemistry sets.…

William A. Muller was born in Manhattan but grew up on Long Island; he is the oldest of three brothers, among whom might be found typical sibling rivalry. He is of Jewish ancestry, but his parents and his extended…