Daniel P. Raleigh grew up in Arcata, California, the youngest of four children. His father was a professor at Humboldt State University, his mother a homemaker who had also been a teacher. In addition, all three…

Marilyn Resh grew up in what she calls a typical Long Island town. When she was in high school she discovered science, particularly chemistry, but continued her extensive violin playing throughout college and graduate…

Lee W. Riley was born Hiroshi Satoyoshi: he spent his first ten years with his mother in Yokohama, Japan, then lived for a short time in a Japanese orphanage before being adopted by the Riley family, at which time he…

Judy Lieberman, the second of three daughters, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, but grew up in a New Jersey suburb of New York City. Her father worked for Maidenform Incorporated, and her mother was an elementary…

David E. Levy was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and grew up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, one of two children. His father was a chemist, his mother a classicist; both had been living in California but were assigned to Oak…

Martin Latterich was born in Hamburg, Germany, though lived in Mönchengladbach, Germany until he left for college. His mother, a trained chemist who worked in quality control at a company that manufactured perfume, had…

Frank A. Laski was born in Detroit, Michigan; he grew up in Oak Park, a suburb of Detroit until about high-school age, when his family moved to Southfield, another suburb. His father's parents and sisters perished in a…

Athan Kuliopulos was raised in North Reading, a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts, the middle child of three siblings in a close-knit Greek family. His mother worked as a secretary prior to having children, and then began…

Adrian R. Krainer was born and raised in Montevideo, Uruguay in a Jewish family of eastern European descent (Hungary and Romania), the younger of two brothers. (Krainer's father was forced to work in a Romanian labor…

Jane E. Koehler was born in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1953, the third of four sisters. Her father was the son of German-American farmers from Missouri; he was a World War II veteran who was the first in his family to attend…

Seung K. Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea, the oldest of three boys. His father had escaped North Korea at the beginning of the Korean Conflict, and he eventually became a doctor. His mother was from a large family in…

Douglas R. Kellogg grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, the second oldest of four children. He had an early interest in reading, and took classes with several influential teachers. Kellogg first chose the University of…

Dean H. Kedes' oral history begins with a discussion of his childhood and family life. Heavily influenced by his father, also a biomedical scientist, Kedes developed an interest in science early in life. He would visit…

Gary Karpen was born in New York City but grew up in Norwood, New Jersey. His older sister became an astrophysicist and his younger brother an MD/PhD who does both research and clinical work. His father joined the army…

Hannele Ruohola-Baker was born in Kullaa, Finland—a small farming village—the younger of two siblings. Her mother was a banker who always had an interest in learning, though did not have many opportunities for education…

Joshua M. Kaplan was born in 1960 in Boston, Massachusetts, the youngest of three siblings. His father was an academic physician specializing in hematology, and his mother was a social worker. Raised in a traditionally…

Erin M. Schuman was born in San Gabriel, California, though spent most of her childhood in Huntington Beach, the oldest of three siblings; her mother was a teacher at a Catholic school. She was a "serial hobbyist" with…

Mark P. Kamps grew up in northern New Jersey, one of four children. His father was an engineer, his mother a teacher until her children came along. Kamps's parents, of Dutch descent, belonged to the Christian Reformed…

Gail P. Jarvik was raised in Mount Prospect, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, one of six siblings (with an age-span of seventeen years between the oldest and youngest). Her mother was a housewife who received a college…

Christine E. Holt was born and raised in Wylam, a small village in Northumberland in the north of England, the youngest of three siblings. Her mother was a homemaker; her father was a naval sea captain during World War…

Nancy M. Hollingsworth was born in San Francisco, California, but spent most of her youth moving around—to Oregon, Panama, New Mexico, California, and, finally, Arizona—with her parents and older brother. Her father was…

Ann B. Hill was born in Melbourne, but was raised primarily in Sydney, Australia, the second youngest of four children. Her father took advantage of opportunities for returning soldiers after the Second World War and…

Hong Sun was born and raised in Beijing, China, during the Cultural Revolution, the older of two siblings. Both of her parents were physicians who, later in their careers, focused more on medical research than…

Rebecca W. Heald grew up in Greenville, a small college town in western Pennsylvania, where she was the youngest of three daughters. Her father was a chemistry professor at Thiel College in Greenville, and her mother…

Esther Takeuchi grew up in Akron, Ohio, the youngest of three children. After escaping Soviet Latvia, her father became an electrical engineer for Goodyear Aerospace and her mother a home health worker who also had an…