COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Assistant Director, DNALC NYC
In elementary school, one of my teachers put a petri dish of water on the overhead projector and asked us to think about why the water "disappeared". I have a distinct memory of the moment when I realized that the water molecules got warm because of the light bulb and didn't want to be near each other anymore, so they spread out and turned into gas! From then on, I was fascinated by the idea of science as a process of figuring out why and how things worked, and I took every science class I could in high school.
I attended Michigan State University in large part because of the opportunity to do research starting as a freshman through the Professorial Assistantship program. I really enjoyed working in the lab, so I applied to Ph.D. programs and landed in the Molecular and Human Genetics program at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. In grad school, I studied the processes that control stem cell self-renewal (making more stem cells to maintain a pool throughout life), and how these processes go awry in blood cancers. This was an exciting time as CRISPR was coming on to the scene as a new method for gene editing, so I started working with this technique. I then moved on to a postdoc position at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where I continued to use CRISPR and study leukemia.
During my time in Houston I volunteered for programs that introduced high school students to careers in science and medicine, and at the Health Museum in the DeBakey Cell Lab where I guided visitors through a variety of science experiments. It wasn't until I was interviewing to be a Scientist-in-Residence in NYC that I realized I was more invested in making science accessible to non-scientists than I was in doing primary research myself.
When I came across the DNA Learning Center, I knew that this was a place where my firm belief that science is for everyone was shared. I found out that they wanted to develop a CRISPR course and would be hiring Educators and applied immediately! I'm excited to spend more of my time teaching and sharing science with students.
Growing up, I was always surrounded by animals. There was my brother's pet rat, the family turtle and bird, and of course the dogs. There were always dogs! In fact, every year we had a new puppy because we are "puppy walkers" for the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind. My family has raised puppies since I was in 6th grade, and also participated in the breeding program -- having 2 litters of Labrador Retreiver pups right in our computer room! This constant exposure brought out the animal lover in me, and I decided early on that I was going to be a veterinarian.
I most enjoyed classes in zoology, physiology and animal behavior during my undergraduate biology work at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. After two years of trying to get into veterinary school, I decided to move on with my life. I had to make a decision. What can I do with a degree in biology, and no interest in becoming a lab technician? Teaching was a logical, and surprisingly easy transition for me. I suppose all those years of teaching Sunday school have finally paid off!
Teaching at the Dolan DNA Learning Center is unique, in that I get to interact with different children every day and teach them some of the most exciting science they probably will ever be exposed to. I have the opportunity to learn more practical science than I did in any of my molecular biology courses in college, as well as the taking advantage of all the resources at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Director for Science
My first real memory is of me on a hike by the ocean; my second is of me taking a picture of a flower at my house. It seems that I was always out in nature looking at things or just soaking it in. Maybe soaking in it might be more accurate; I loved mud puddles as a kid! That, along with my dad being a science professor and my mom being a teacher, led me naturally to biology and I ended up studying how cells divide and develop into complex things like worms or people using genetics in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans: I first studied genes that control how nerve cells grow to their targets as a graduate student at the University of Toronto and then moved to the University of Oregon to study how cells divide.
The longer I stayed in science, the more my interests switched from doing lab work to teaching. I found that I was most interested and satisfied when helping others learn. I looked for opportunities to lecture, enjoyed teaching lab members "worm" genetics and even became an active volunteer with educational groups, where I was a nature guide, taught school children biology experiments in school gardens, and taught teachers the use of school gardens as a living lab.
Perhaps most telling for me was the day I identified the lesion in the latest mutant I was studying: I had cloned another gene! Shouldn't I be thrilled? I was happy, but I was much happier showing a third-grade student a bird's nest on a nature hike and discussing with her why the bird on the nest was mottled brown. At that point I knew: I had to find a way to teach science. When I looked for a good place to teach biology, I found the DNA Learning Center. It just seemed right when I checked it out, and lucky for me they wanted to hire a "worm person". I found a great place to teach cutting-edge science.
Now that I have been here for more than ten years, I have been lucky enough to work with a great team as we create new teaching programs on genetics, molecular biology, ecology, and bioinformatics. I'm especially proud that I have helped thousands of students do independent research using RNA interference or DNA sequence to study biodiversity. I have also been able to train educators in the region, around the country, and in far-flung places like China and Singapore.
Job Titles:
- Senior Multimedia Designer
It was my last year of elementary school, my mom signed me up for an art enrichment program admission exam at a junior high school outside our district in Taipei. I was admitted to the program and it was the beginning of my journey in art. I was then on track for continued art training in senior high school. Eventually, that led me to studying art at the university.
I always knew that I would go abroad to see other part of the world and after I graduated from college, I came to New York and to study computer graphics and multimedia. I then took a position at CSHL's DNA Learning Center helping with web development and interactive media for its science education outreach mission. I didn't have science background and was not really interested in biology when I was in school. However, I am very fortunate to learn real science from the best educators at this world-renowned scientific institution, so I can create animations to help people understand science. I think that's pretty cool! I also have had the opportunity to meet and video interview many outstanding researchers, including Nobel Laureates, for our educational materials.
The DNALC is a very unique place to work, especially as a "multi" media designer. I started the job creating animations, but my tasks have extended from interactive media to desktop publishing and exhibition design. From photography, videography, online video, to live steaming media and webinar support. I also help plan and develop DNALC's signature lab classrooms around the world, and assist with international collaborations. I am sure many other "multi" tasks await to explore, as we always try to be on top of what we do.
Job Titles:
- Senior Software Developer
I have an engineering degree from Technical "Gheorghe Asachi" University, Iasi, Romania where I studied computer science and engineering. I have been designing and writing software since 2000, primarily in Perl since I like its flexibility and powerful features. I enjoy creating online web applications because the impact is immediate and people have access to its features as soon as I publish them. You can also continuously improve and add features to your app. It is almost an organic experience.
Another dimension to my work is the focus on open source technologies. I love the feeling when your work is part of a project that brings together some of the best minds in an area. It is amazing to me howa virtual team gets to create and improve upon a project and make something very useful to the entire community.
I have a degree in computer science from Queens College. My interest in coding began in high school, where I took courses which taught me about front end web development. I took this knowledge into the first college I attended, Adelphi University, where I worked on the university web team as a student worker. I was studying physics at Adelphi University, and during my last semester there, I developed a passion for programming while taking both an introductory computer science course and a physics elective about the programming language MATLAB.
I learned many more programming languages once I transferred to Queens College, and tutored other students both through the computer science department and privately. I learned Python in order to help a physics professor at Queens College with his research on measuring the impact of certain factors on the sustainability of world peace. I am now working in the BioMedia Group at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to develop tools to aid students in learning the many topics taught in the DNA Learning Center.
Nothing in my precollege schooling in a leafy suburb of Baltimore would have predicted that I would end up at a high-powered research institute. I sat in the back row of biology class, where I regularly played cards. I often slept during my chemistry class because I stayed up late to watch the Dick Cavett Show. However, I got turned on to biology in a sophomore class at Frostburg State College, when I did a great dissection of the inner ear of a sand shark and debated the professor on her labeling of the parts on a practical. I also had an assistantship to help out on research on sea squirts and got hooked on bird watching. After completing an undergraduate degree in biology, I did service in the Peace Corps as a secondary science teacher at a government boarding school on the edge of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana. I returned to get a graduate degree in journalism, but my dream of becoming a science writer was dashed by a sharp downturn in science reporting in daily newspapers.
After a brief stint in opinion research at a Manhattan PR agency, I was hired by Jim Watson in 1982 to start the Laboratory's development and public affairs efforts. However, when Jim was away on sabbatical in 1984, I became increasingly interested in education. Future Nobel Laureate, Rich Roberts, gave me a little space in his lab, where I worked with postdoc Greg Freyer to develop a set of simple experiments that would allow students to get their hands dirty with recombinant DNA. By the time Jim returned from England, I had managed to raise $60,000 to equip six local school districts for DNA experimentation and to train the first group of Long Island teachers.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Director, Inclusion and Research Readiness
I don't think I have ever read a biography, nor have I written one much more than the few sentences I hope to share with you here. Perhaps in the hundred or so pages of a book styled in this peculiar genre, may a reader gain some sense of understanding about the person's life contained therein. My opinion has been that each person's life, or at the very least my own, is such a dynamic evolution of chance and circumstance, that it is unwise to let history dictate outcome.
But philosophical quibbles aside, let me tell you at least a little about myself. Born and raised on Long Island, New York, I imagine I have found ideal surroundings for a "career" in science. I am not sure how I first got interested in science, but I had my own television when I was young, and without cable, PBS was the only channel I could get reception on. Hours of nature shows, broadcasts from the New York Philharmonic, and Julia Child, may have contributed to my interests (and modest talents) in science, classical music, and cooking.
Job Titles:
- Manager, Student and Public Research
I grew up in Ohio and spent most of my childhood building tree houses in the woods and riding bikes. I had very little idea of what I wanted to be when I grew up, and no one in my family had a career in science. In school, I loved logic puzzles but didn't realize that science is all about solving puzzles until high school. In 9th grade, we almost exclusively conducted experiments in science class and I was amazed to discover that we could figure out the nature of atoms for ourselves, even though we couldn't see them. That experience gave me a new way to think about the world.
I studied genetics in college because I enjoyed the logic and because I appreciated being able to do research that might help cure diseases. At the time, the Human Genome Project was still years away from completion and the hunt for a single disease gene might take a team of scientists 10 or more years. I was lucky enough during a college internship at the Mayo Clinic to have the opportunity to make a very small contribution close to the end of a hunt for a gene for frontotemporal dementia. This experience gave me a deep appreciation of the vastness of the human genome and the myriad ways that changes in DNA may or may not cause disease.
Because I was hooked by genetics, I joined the Human Genetics and Molecular Biology graduate program at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In Carol Greider's lab, I studied how the shortening of the repetitive telomere sequence at the ends of chromosomes can lead to rearrangements of other parts of the chromosomes. These kinds of mutations can cause cancer. This was the most complex puzzle I had yet encountered and I loved every moment of it. I also greatly enjoyed my postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School developing a high-throughput way to turn off individual human genes to screen for genes that could be possible drug targets.
In my free time, I was increasingly volunteering with children and discovered that I was even happier working with children than I was in the research lab. I studied to be an educator and am happy to have taught science in NYC schools for 13 years. Figuring out the best strategy to develop each student's understanding is an ever-evolving puzzle. I am thrilled to join the DNALC for the opportunity to combine my passions for science and education and to support the next generation in developing a love for learning.
I was born and raised on Long Island. For as long as I can remember I have always been interested in science. As a child I was fascinated by anything to do with space. I would always sit in my backyard staring at the sky wondering what was out there. It wasn't until much later on that I would become interested in Biology. My high school didn't require me to take a science course my last two years in order to graduate and so I kind of lost interest in science. It was always in the back of my mind and I would still watch some of those science shows on TV (this was the time that you could actually discover things on the Discovery Channel and learn things on The Learning Channel) but that was the extent of it.
When I graduated high school I went to Suffolk Community College for business management which I quickly learned I didn't like and so I quit after a year. I concentrated on my job at a cleaning company after that and eventually became the Operations Manager which I enjoyed for a few years but I never really felt fulfilled. In desperate need of a change, I left there and moved to Cape Coral, Florida. It was there that I would rediscover my passion for science that I had when I was a little kid. The night sky looked like nothing I'd ever seen before (there's too much light pollution on Long Island). Again I found myself sitting outside staring at the night sky which inspired me to start reading Carl Sagan and Anne Druyans ‘A Pale Blue Dot'. When I finished that I was hooked again and I started reading, watching, and listening to everything about science I could get my hands on. At the time this was just a hobby of mine and I had no intention of making it a career. Eventually the heat in Southwest Florida became too much and so I moved back to NY after about eight months.
Struggling to find a job outside of the cleaning industry I decided to go back to school to get my degree which I always regretted not finishing. In my second semester back I took a physical anthropology course which was my first real introduction to genetics and biology in college. After about a year and a half, I graduated from Suffolk and enrolled in Stony Brook University studying biochemistry and cell biology. That eventually led me to getting a job at the DNA Learning Center and I couldn't be happier professionally.
Job Titles:
- Administrative Manager
- Assistant
I was born on Long Island and raised mostly on Long Island, save for a five year stint in northern Virginia during my teens, but since northern Virginia is full of people fleeing the Tri-State area I hardly noticed the difference. I graduated from high school in Virginia and returned to Long Island to attend college. I received my bachelor's degree in history from Adelphi University. I then moved on to Sarah Lawrence College for a master's in Women's History, but life got in the way. I plan to resume someday: in the meantime I'm continuing research on my thesis.
Career-wise, I've worked in an administrative capacity for a firm specializing in background investigations and an insurance agency. In the future, I'd like to either teach or work in a museum setting, so working here at the DNALC, which has elements of both, is really wonderful to me.
In my free time, I read, write, draw and make occasional stabs at knitting. I'm also trying to teach my bratty German Shepherd, Emma, how to behave herself in polite society: so far it's not working. I'm also working on improving my Japanese: maybe this year I'll memorize enough kanji to be able to read on a fifth-grade level. Ganbaru yo!
Job Titles:
- Manager, Student and Public Research
I tossed the slides of insect parts that came with my brand new microscope, a Christmas gift from my parents when I was 8. I was determined to see an amoeba! Though my initial attempts proved unsuccessful with a toy microscope, I loved the idea of being able to study a world we couldn't see with the naked eye.
In high school, I became fascinated with the seemingly simplistic structure yet complex nature of DNA, which narrowed my focus to molecular biology. I graduated with a bachelor's degree in biology from SUNY Geneseo and pursued a Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, where I studied protein-DNA interactions and chromatin regulation. I continued my research there as a postdoctoral associate in the microbiology department, where I investigated the effects of post-translational modifications on the activity of DNA replication and repair proteins. During my time as a graduate student and postdoc, I had many opportunities to tutor, teach, and mentor students, as well as participate in a hands-on science education outreach program with students from surrounding elementary schools. I realized that I had a passion for teaching in addition to my love of laboratory bench science. I was thrilled to discover the DNA Learning Center, whose interactive approach to science education for students reflected my own views and experiences, and knew that I had to be a part of the action!
By the way, I did eventually get to see my amoebas… and they did not disappoint!
I started at CSHL after my junior year at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art as a summer photography intern in the Public Affairs department. I spent my time wandering the grounds photographing the beautiful landscapes and architecture, popped into labs to capture candids of the scientists at work, documented the activities of the meetings and courses, and designed publications and brochures. I stayed on through my senior year, splitting my weeks between the CSHL campus and NYC's East Village. After graduating with a BFA in 1986, I was hired full time that fall. I am always proud when I recognize my photos from that time in Lab publications!
I transitioned to the DNALC a year after it opened in 1989 to be an Exhibit Designer, and I got married a few months later. Over the years, I took on additional and varied responsibilities and I am now the Creative Director. I helped develop our in-house exhibits Story of a Gene (1995), The World of Barbara McClintock (1996), The Genes We Share (2002), and the current exhibition featuring Ötzi the Iceman, Our Human Inheritance (2016). I worked with the BioMedia Group to develop our suite of digital resources, including 20+ websites and three apps. I illustrated the textbooks DNA Science (1990) and Laboratory DNA Science (1996), and created the cover of Genome Science (2013). The BioMedia Group also creates printed materials including posters and banners, brochures, exhibit guides, and flyers, as well as produces webinars and videos. I still wander with a camera, capturing visiting students working in our lab and computer classrooms.
My role is ever evolving. I have been fortunate for nearly three decades to use art to advance the understanding of science at the DNALC and work with and support its amazing science educators.
I grew up on Long Island in Manhasset, lived for a while in Manhattan, and then moved to Huntington where I have lived for forty years. While earning a B.A. from SUNY New Paltz, I managed to do some traveling for which I developed a lifelong passion, enjoying the diversity of different cultures and natural environments.
Over time I worked for two major Manhattan law firms and on Long Island for a small firm handling radio advertising and a large telephonic communications corporation. I also spent some time working for a local newspaper where I learned some valuable skills in producing a publication. Subsequently I spent years editing, writing, and designing a series of self-healing books based on Taoist practices. Many of these books were translated into other languages and can be found in parts of Europe and Asia.
When not working, I facilitated groups for a mothers' center, where I also published a newsletter and fundraised. I continued this type of rewarding endeavor for eleven years as a PTA board member where I enjoyed many friendships and learned many skills through years of interactions with children and their parents, teachers and administrators.
My husband is a retired concept design engineer who was born and raised in Hungary. As a young man, he played professional soccer for a Parisian team before moving to the United States. We have a son who attended the DNA Learning Center summer camps and introduced me to my future place of employment. He is a cellist and a world traveler who recently has found a career as an Urban Planner in a nearby township. He has many plans!