Working Scientist

Theoretical physicist Stephon Alexander was 12 years old when his father bought him a saxophone at a garage sale near their home in the Bronx, New York. Soon after he heard Ornette Coleman, a pioneer of free jazz, on the radio. “There was this saxophone playing that was completel ...  Show more

Frances Brodsky believes that writing her three mystery novels set in the world of bench science has improved her scientific writing. “I love making up titles for my books and chapters,” she says. “One of the best ways to train someone in the lab to focus on their project is for ...  Show more

Brandon Brown “fell into farming” after tiring of city life during the COVID-19 pandemic and now tends more than 150 fruit trees alongside his research into HIV and public health ethics at the University of California, Riverside School of Medicine. “I had to look at farming the s ...  Show more

Baking bread during Covid-19 lockdowns provided Chantle Edillor with some career inspiration. “I knew I wanted to do something different and an exploration in sourdough presented an opportunity that I felt uniquely able to pursue,” she says. In 2022, after completing PhD research ...  Show more

Yasmin Proctor-Kent likens sewing to science. “I find them really hard to separate them in my brain. I don’t think I can sew without engaging the same part of my brain that I do science with,” she says. For Proctor-Kent, a research and development scientist at the cancer diagnost ...  Show more