Becoming a Crystallographer

Abstract

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” is a common question posed to children, and answers such as firefighter, policeman, athlete, doctor, or teacher are probably just as common. Some, like Oliver Sacks, recall an early fascination with metals, the periodic table, and chemical reactions that planted the seeds for the later pursuit of the natural sciences or medicine (neurology in his case). We are familiar with memories of chemists that include their first chemistry set, followed by complaints by parents over strange smells and close calls due to particularly exothermic reactions. For others, including myself, a future in research remained more obscure until a later period in adolescence or perhaps even the undergraduate years. Rather than seeking out a field, the field finds you. In actuality, teachers and mentors with expertise in and enthusiasm for a field exert a force that charts a path toward scientific research throughout life. Here, I stress the importance of terrific teachers and mentors from high school onwards to the undergraduate, Ph.D., and postdoc years for setting me on a track (and on occasion preventing me from derailing) to research in structural chemistry and molecular mechanism using crystallography as the main tool.