Career Ladder: Mark Olson

Abstract

1990 Early science exposure Mark A. Olson grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas, the youngest child by 18 years in his Mexican-Norwegian family. His mother was a nurse and his father was a middle school math and science teacher. “He was always quizzing me in the car,” Olson says of his father. “That was always a fun game to play with him.” By the time college was on the horizon, Olson wanted to become a pediatric cardiologist. 2000 A moth to a flame Olson started as a biology major at Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi, an undergraduate-only institution federally designated as Hispanic serving. One evening, glittering lights emanating from a darkened chemistry lab caught his eye. Upon learning the cost of the lights’ source—gas chromatography/mass spectrometry instruments—he thought, “Holy cow, this little box is that expensive?” Intrigued, Olson began working in that lab, mentored by Eugene and Fereshteh Billiot. “Once