Theo Colborn was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, in 1927. The area was rural, and she lived on a farm until she was five years old. Her father worked as a traveling cookie salesman. The family moved to East Orange, New Jersey, and Colborn attended the East Orange school system, which she believes was excellent. Her fifth-grade teacher, Sue Garris, taught the students all about the outdoors and was an early inspiration for Colborn. The family loved music and often harmonized together. In high school, Colborn and a female friend signed up to take the scientific course and were the only females in the science classes. After she graduated from high school, she planned to attend Rutgers College of Pharmacy, but she did not know if she could afford it. She briefly worked at a pharmaceutical company until she received a call that she had been offered a full scholarship to attend the College of Pharmacy. After Colborn earned her degree, she began working at a local pharmacy where she met her husband, Harry Colborn. They married and began working together as pharmacists, eventually owning three drugstores. After fifteen years of working together, they decided to go back to school at Colorado University in the College of Pharmacy. By then, they had started a family so the kids came along with them. Harry completed one semester before he decided he wanted to start a farm to raise beef, so the family moved. Later Colborn and her husband divorced, and she decided to pursue a degree at Western State University, desiring to become an expert in Western water quality. She spent her summers at Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, including sitting in on a course taught by Paul R. Ehlrich and John P. Holdren. Stanley I. Dodson then invited Colborn to do a PhD with him at the University of Wisconsin. She talks about her graduate school experience, noting it was different being an older student.

Near the end of her PhD program, a fellow student encouraged her to submit an application to the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), a position she received. At OTA, Colborn caught “Potomac Fever” and began working on a study looking at the safety measures of chemical manufacturers. She also began studying ozone, which prompted her to consider air pollution. After her time at OTA, she was invited to write a report on the health of the Great Lakes for the Conservation Foundation. When funding from the foundation ended, Colborn received support from Environment Canada and Health Canada. She continued to receive grants for her work and began planning a meeting discussing topics she had covered in her research. She wrote a technical book and worked with Dianne Dumanoski to translate that book into a popular press book. She concludes the first interview session by reflecting on science and policy and the importance of scientists speaking out.

During the second interview session, Colborn goes into detail about her work. The International Joint Commission gave her a grant to work on a paper on the epidemiology of bald eagles in the Great Lakes. She planned a Wingspread Conference in the nineties and discusses the documented endocrine-disrupting human disorders that have been discovered since then. Colborn talks about the public reception of her work, including the popular press book, Our Stolen Future. While the book had some positive reception in the United States, it was better received in Japan where most people could recognize Colborn’s name. Since the book did not have the impact she wanted, she believes the next strategy is getting through the medical sciences. She hopes the US will devote more time and money to inner-space research. She talks about EDSTAC and moving the work from committees to an independent, international organization called EDICOR. When that organization took a nosedive, she founded The Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDX). Colborn came back to Colorado, hired some employees, and kept writing technical papers to get the message out. She sees a future goal of working toward convincing people that inner-space research is necessary. Colborn ends the interview by reflecting on self-sufficiency, the need to stop buying products full of chemicals, and science and politics. She hopes to make a movie about endocrine disruption to reach a larger audience and appreciates the opportunities she has had to speak to many people.