Carolyn Bertozzi

I started as a biology major, maybe premed, but then fell in love with organic chemistry - synthesis and mechanism, really - when I took the intro organic chemistry course my sophomore year. After that year, I tried to get a summer job in an organic synthesis lab but the doors were not open to women at that time (there is another discussion that can be had here, of course, that even involves Title IX, but I digress...). So after many unsuccessful attempts, I finally conceded that my destiny would like squarely in biology and found a lab that would take me for the summer.

Then, out of nowhere, the professor teaching my advanced physical organic chemistry course came up to me after class and offered me a summer research job. I didn't know what he did - turned out to be a physical chemist - but accepted on the spot simply because someone in chemistry wanted to hire me.

One thing I did learn in grad school which has been immensely helpful in all areas of life is how to be a "closer". That is, how to bring a project to a stage of completion where you have a product to show for it (in grad school, that product being a publication of some substance). When projects did not look like they had a path to closure, I learned how to redirect them toward such a path. The lesson was learned the hard way. My PhD advisor, a new assistant professor when I joined his lab, left the profession after my third year of grad school. For the last two years, I and two lab mates had to figure out how to finish our PhD work, get published and get jobs, with little "grown up supervision".