In elementary school I brought home mice for a science experiment. In middle school, I asked my parents to send me to Space Camp. In high school I took weekend astronomy classes at Adler Planetarium and vowed to make my own sundial after seeing the related museum’s colorful exhibit.

 

I went on to college intending to study physics, then go on to do something related to cutting-edge research.

 

The mice died; my parents didn’t bite; and my ‘sundial’ didn’t even tell the correct time once a day.

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But that's OK, because it turns out I'm really interested in stories.

 

Stories of bacteria accidentally sending an immune system haywire, or about a woman who hears green and paints concertos, or of fishing trawlers, or lead poisoning, or bird brains, or transcranial magnetic stimulation, or water on the sun.

 

Even the story of a single, ethereal photon, formed perhaps around the time of the first homo sapiens, taking more than 100,000 years to make its way from the center of the sun to the surface of a blade of grass.

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What I really love are the stories of science.

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Also, I love music. Every time I move I think "I'm going to get rid of these heavy records one day." But it's a lie. Soul, ska and rocksteady from the 60s, rock'n'roll and punk rock from then and now, I can't get enough. I occasionally dj in Baltimore and Washington D.C.

 

I'm the one dancing behind the turntables with a quote from Johannes Kepler peeking out from under my sleeve.

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"Oh, ridiculous me!"

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