Interview with Helen Blackwell

Helen Blackwell (#867) Transcript

SP: Today is Wednesday May 9, 2007. My name is Sandy Pfahler and I'm interviewer with the University of Wisconsin Madison Oral History Project. Today, I am interviewing Dr. Helen Blackwell, Assistant Professor in the UW-Madison Chemistry Department. Good morning.

HB: Hi.

SP: We're going to start this interview by asking you if you would talk about your early life. Where and when you were born, where you went to elementary school, high school, were there any people in your life, family or friends, who influenced you on your career path?

HB: OK, so I was born in 1972 in Cleveland, Ohio. And I grew up on the east side of Cleveland. I lived in Shaker Heights, Ohio, which is a suburb of Cleveland. I went to the public schools there. Went to Onaway Elementary School named after an Indian tribe that it was in the area. And I then went on to the high school, so Shaker Heights High School, there after middle school. I guess I always liked 00:01:00my science classes a lot, a tremendous amount. I always sort of did well in those. I did well in math. I did well in science and those were my favorite classes.

I remember a time capsule that we-- in elementary school, that we put into the ground outside Onaway. I have no idea if it's ever been dug up yet, but I remember actually, we were recorded. Very similar to this. And we had to say what we wanted to be when we grew up, and I said I wanted to be a scientist. So it's kind of interesting that I'm here now being a scientist.

Yeah, so people who had an influence on me during that time period. I had great teachers who were really motivated, who had an endless sort of enthusiasm for science. And then my father is a chemist, so that also had an effect on me. No one else in my family is scientifically inclined. They're all artists and musicians, but my dad is a scientist, so I think that kind of inspired me a bit and he was always very supportive. So that sort of shaped my early years before 00:02:00I want to college.

SP: What did your mother do?

HB: She was a music teacher in the public schools and then just a freelance musician. She plays the oboe.

SP: Did you have any brothers and sister?

HB: I have one brother who is two years older than me, Martin, and he is a historian. And he is a professor in Georgia.

SP: So it was understood that you would be going to college?

HB: Yes. It was pretty much understood that we would go. My parents were the first ones in their families to go to college, but it was definitely assumed that my brother and I would be going.

SP: And how did you decide where you ended up in college?

HB: Well I want to care someplace-- I wanted to go to a small college. My brother went to Kenyon College in Ohio, which is a small liberal arts school. And I wanted to go to also, a small liberal arts college. And I wanted to go someplace which had a strong science program. I wasn't absolutely sure that I wanted to do science. I mean that's what I felt I would like to do, but liberal 00:03:00arts education kind of exposes you to a bit of everything. And then, I also, because my mom is very musical, I enjoy music. So I wanted to go someplace, which had strong music. So I went to Oberlin College in Ohio, which has extremely strong science program, even stronger now than it was then. And also it has a conservancy of music. I didn't really participate in that very much, but it was there and there was a very rich sort of musical world around there. So that helped me in my decision to go there.

SP: Talk about your college experience. Did you have good professors?

HB: I did. So I got there and I took-- you know, I felt I wanted to be probably in chemistry, but I wasn't sure so I took a sort of diversity of classes my first year. But I made sure I took general chemistry. Because well, if I'm going to major in this, it'd probably be good to get that out the way. So I took that and I just loved it. And the teachers were fabulous. Just really supportive and it was a very challenging curriculum. It's not an easy major to do. But they 00:04:00were really supportive of me and it was very close knit environment. Only like 11 faculty. But a lot of majors for the number of-- for the size of the school, like 4,000 people. There'd be, you know, 40 majors or something like that, which is pretty good for chemistry. And just by the end of my first year, I just knew that's what I wanted to do, so I signed on and became a major at that point. I never doubted it after that. I really just loved it. I just sort of ate it up.

SP: Did you know that you wanted to be an academic chemist?

HB: I think I did. The reason I did is because one thing, which was unique about Oberlin is it had this thing called a winter term project. So you got out of school in December and then all of your January was free and then you started school again in February. And in that January term, you had to have sort of an independent project, which you could make up. And people did crazy things for this. But I always did science because I liked science. So I went and worked in labs and I went and worked at Case Western Reserve, which is in Cleveland. It's 00:05:00a university there, and I worked in a lab there. And I started doing that my freshman year. And I just loved it. And I loved working in the lab and I was in a-- Oberlin's just an undergraduate institution. But Case Western is a graduate institution. So I saw like the life of graduate students and that this is what they did. And I really thought it was great. I wanted to go to graduate school and maybe be in that environment. So it was pretty early on I decided that I knew I definitely would want to go to graduate school.

SP: Then when you graduated from college, how did you decide where you wanted to go to graduate school?

HB: Well I applied to a few places and I knew actually, since I grew up in Ohio and I went to college, I wanted to get as far away from Ohio as possible at that point. So I wanted to go to California. So I applied to a lot of schools in California for graduate school. I applied to very good chemistry programs there. And I was lucky to get accepted to California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, which has a very strong chemistry program. And there were a number of 00:06:00researchers there where I was really excited about their work, and if I went there, I would have loved to work with any of them. So it was pretty clear cut that once I got accepted there that that was where I would go.

SP: And did you have a pretty good idea then-- you said that there were researchers there that you knew you wanted to work with. What was it about them that--

HB: Well, I liked-- when I was an undergraduate I was really interested in macromolecular systems. So what does that mean? So a molecule is just like a little molecule. A macromolecule is really big. So it's a big molecule. And I was interested in polymers. That's the kind of research I did when I was an undergrad. And then there were a lot of faculty at Caltech that were interested in that area. And I was just interested in polymer chemistry because it allowed you to do synthesis, like to make molecules, which I really enjoyed. But it also allowed you to study their function. Like, what kind of properties did they 00:07:00have? Were they good for codings? Were they good with strength? Did they have good sort of elasticity? Things like that.

I like this concept of structure and function, so I wanted to go some place where I could sort of work with people interested in that same area. Interesting, I did nothing like that for my PhD. That's what I was interested in at that point.

SP: Well then talk about your graduate work.

HB: Yeah, so for my graduate work I worked with a professor called Bob Grubbs. So I joined his lab in 1994 and at that point they had just developed some really interesting chemistry, which they were studying a new reaction. And I'll just say the reaction, then I'll explain it. It's called olefin metathesis. And what is this? This is a reaction where you just make-- it's a new way, a very, very power way to make carbon-carbon bonds. And the world is made up of carbon-carbon bonds, like proteins are made up of carbon-carbon bonds. Very strong things, diamonds are made of graphite carbon-carbon bonds. Those are very stable things. Really useful reactions in organic chemistry are those which make 00:08:00carbon-carbon bonds. And if you look back through the history of all the Nobel Prizes in chemistry, especially synthetic chemistry, people who develop reactions to make like new ways to make carbon-carbon bonds, usually end up getting the Nobel Prize. Amazingly, my PhD advisor got the Noble Prize two years ago. I had no idea about this. So it's really, pretty cool.

Anyways, so they had just developed it, so it was a really exciting time to join the lab. The sky was the limit. Who knows what we could do with this reaction. So I went in there and I made all sorts of different small molecules and big molecules. And I wasn't really doing any polymer chemistry, even though you could use this reaction to make polymers. I was making more sort of small, organic molecules and sort of interesting molecules that were peptide based. And sort of exploring the scope and limitations of this reaction. It was great. It was a wonderful five years.

SP: Were there female professors in the chemistry department there?

HB: There were two.

SP: Did you have a chance to work with them?

HB: I had one who was on my PhD thesis committee, who-- her name is Barbara Imperiali. And then I actually had another one. Both of them were on my PhD committee at the end, but I only really interacted with one of them the most, Barbara Imperiali. She was a tough cookie, she was very tough. But she was very inspiring person. So it was good to have her.

SP: Well talk about what life is like as a graduate student. You said that you saw it as Case Western Reserve and that's what you wanted. What is it like?

HB: Well it's a very intense period of time, and if you're doing organic chemistry, you spend a lot of time in the lab working in the lab. Because it's a very intensive-- a lot of times when you do a reaction it doesn't work. So you have to spend a lot of time optimizing it and figuring it out why it doesn't work. And it's a lot of puzzles that you have to solve. Things work only about 5% of the time, so there's a lot of stress and strain trying to get there. What 00:10:00I liked so much about it was that you were in charge, you were the boss, you were kind of driving things. And the sky was kind of the limit. If you were inspired, you could take this to the next level. And I liked that aspect of it. And my advisor gave me a lot of freedom to do that, which I was very, very happy to have.

SP: Now here you were in sunny California, far away from home. Did you have a life outside of the lab when you were in grad school?

HB: Yeah, I did. It was a very close-knit group of people in the chemistry department. So we had a life outside of lab, but it was mostly with people who were in the chemistry department. So my husband, who's my husband now, was in the same group as I. So you know, we worked in the lab, but we try to keep things separate in the lab. But you know, I had him as sort of resource outside of lab.

SP: Did you pretty much work in isolation though, in the lab?

HB: No, you're working in a group, so I had a project where I was working with a number of people all the time. So it was very sort of team oriented to some 00:11:00extent. You had a defined aspect of the project, which was yours, but it fit into a larger scheme of things. So that was really good too. And it was a very collegial bunch.

SP: When you finished your PhD, did you do post doc work?

HB: Yeah. So then I went to the East Coast. I went to Harvard. And I did three years of post doc there. So during my last couple years with Bob at Caltech I became-- and I told you how I got interested in polymers and macromolecules because I was interested in not only their structure, but their function, like what they did. I'm interested in organic molecules and I was making all sorts of molecules with Bob. But I was also interested in, well what can these things do? Now that we have them, like can we use these to learn something about the structure of compound? And I was looking at these in the context of peptides. So really, you know, little, tiny proteins.

And I knew when I did a post doc I wanted to go somewhere where I could further that interest in sort of molecules with biological function. So not the polymer 00:12:00function, but the biological function. And I wanted to go somewhere where I could do that. So I went and worked for Stuart Schreiber at Harvard, who had developed a really rich program in what is now sort of called chemical biology. So it's chemistry and biology kind of mixed together.

SP: Now how did you get connected with him?

HB: Well I applied. I wrote him a letter and I said, here's my CV and this is what I've done. Would you be interested in having me join your lab? So I had to go and interview with him and everything to make sure it would be a good fit.

SP: And you were there for?

HB: Three years.

SP: Three years. OK. And talk about that experience.

HB: Well that was really sort of life-changing in some ways-- research-changing, maybe. Because it really expanded my view of science. Because my graduate career had been very, very chemical. But now I was sort of learning not just chemistry, but also sort of opened up the world of biology to me. And I was just fascinated with it. I mean it's just amazing.

SP: Do you take classes too when you're a post doc?

HB: No.

SP: You just do the research.

HB: You just do research. So it's like a wonderful period of time because you don't have any-- like when you're a graduate student there's sort of little hurdles that you have to keep jumping through. Like little requirements. There's nothing when you're a post doc.

SP: You don't teach?

HB: Nothing.

SP: Just do your research.

HB: Just do research and it's fabulous. But it's a very short period of time and you know at the end of it you're going to have to find a job, so it's great, but you know it's going to come to an end. So it's great, but it's also a little bit stressful.

SP: Well what happened when it came to the end then?

HB: Well when I came to an end I wanted to look for academic jobs. So by that time I had become very sort of interested in biology, biological aspects, I wanted to be somewhere in a chemistry department, but where I could ask a lot of biological questions with my chemical research. So I wanted to go someplace where that type of work would be appreciated. So someplace like UW-Madison is someplace where that's appreciated. There's really strong-- probably almost the 00:14:00strongest worldwide research base here in terms of sort of chemical biology. And I wanted to come and sort of be part of that.

SP: So you knew that?

HB: I knew that, so when I saw that this job was-- there was a posting. I was like, I'm applying. That's like my dream job. And luckily, my husband's also an academic and he's in the College of Engineering here. He was applying for jobs too and there was an opening in chemical engineering. I was like, oh my God. This is like the dream job. So it took a long time for it to work out. He got the offer and then I eventually got the offer and it took a while. But it eventually worked out.

SP: Then when was that? When did you come here?

HB: We came here in July 2002.

SP: Is it what you expected?

HB: Most days, yeah. I'd say most days it is. There's things that you don't see from the outside when you're interviewing. There's politics, there's struggles and strife, but on a day to day basis it's great.

SP: Talk about the culture of the Chemistry Department.

HB: I think it really is a unique department, granted I haven't been in any of the other departments and I haven't been here that long. But just from talking to my older colleagues who have interacted with other departments across campus, it's an extremely well run department. Very egalitarian. Everyone has to make some sort of contribution. It's not like certain people don't have to do anything, but other people then have to pick up the flack. Everyone sort of has their part in the puzzle and is very committed to the cause, and feels a lot of pride in this place. And it really is unique. I mean I have lunch with-- all of the organic faculty at least, we have lunch every week together where we just hang out and talk about issues, or just talk about non-scientific issues or department issues, which is really nice. A lot of places don't do that. And they've been very, very supportive of their junior faculty here. They bring in 00:16:00good people and they give them as much room to grow and sort of resources, and kind of shield them from a lot of administrative duties and onerous teaching issues. And kind of give you a little bit of time to bloom. So they've been very supportive of me, which I'm really appreciative of.

SP: What about the students, are they what you expected?

HB: The students are great. And I told you how we at UW, especially in chemistry, there's a real strength in this chemical biology area, and I have a number of older colleagues who have been working in this area. So they've been attracting students in this area. So when I got here, people were already applying who were interested in this sort of area. So that was really good. So I already have like-minded students who come in, we don't have to coerce them into what I'm doing.

SP: Now, was this building built after, completed after you got here? You're in a new building.

HB: Actually, you're in-- this is the original. This is 1962 building.

SP: Oh this is the '62.

HB: Yeah, it's hard to tell.

SP: You're right. I came in the new building.

HB: Yeah, so the new building's actually over there. So that addition was put up in 2000. So that was sort of relatively new when I got here.

SP: So this has been your office and your lab is right here?

HB: My lab is right around the corner.

SP: How do you like the physical facilities?

HB: It's really good. I mean this is the oldest part of the building, but when they added the new addition to it, they renovated most of the space.

SP: That's beautiful.

HB: Yeah, it's really nice. Actually, the layout in the older part is-- for what we do, which is kind of chemistry and biology, the space is a little bit more flexible in the older building. So it's good.

SP: Would you talk more about your research. What you're doing today, how it's funded, how it's changing.

HB: Yeah, so what do we do? Obviously, I keep mentioning this chemical biology term. So I'm trained as an organic chemist, but I guess I'm secretively trying to become a biologist. So I shouldn't be taping this. I am interested in small molecule signaling. And I'm interested in signaling in bacteria. So bacteria are 00:18:00obviously, of a lot of interest because there's a tremendous need for us to further understand how they live, either as individual cells or in groups. And this is really important because it plays a role in infection. And I'm interested broadly, like the biological area that we're broadly sort of targeting in terms of human health is infectious disease. And so I'm interested in specific signaling pathways that bacteria use, and they use these very simple organic molecules. And they sort of shoot these out at each other and they can sense them. And when they get to a certain cell number they're like hey, there's lots of these molecules around. That must mean there's lots of cells around. Hey, there's a big group of us around. Let's do something as a group that we wouldn't do if there were just a few of us around. Because as a group it's like mob mentality. We can invade and just conquer as opposed to a few cells. And 00:19:00that's how a lot of pathogens infect. They only infect when they've got to a certain cell number.

SP: So I'm interested in trying to understand those signaling processes because if we could block those processes, that would be a way to keep bacteria from behaving badly. And that would be a new strategy to control infectious disease.

HB: In turn, there are bacteria, which use these signaling processes to assess their population density. And then when they're in the group state, they actually do good things. So symbiotic bacteria who live with their host, like in your gut. There's lots of bacteria that live in your gut. It sounds kind of gross, but it's really important that you have all these bacteria down there. Because they do really beneficial things for your. They help digest food, they protect you actually from bad pathogens. And a lot of those behaviors only occur when there's a certain concentration or certain number of the cells around. So if we could promote that, like a probiotic strategy, that would be really beneficial too for human health. So we're looking at ways to intercept and divert these signaling processes. And what's really cool is these signals are 00:20:00all really simple, organic molecules that my lab can make. So we can synthesize these and we can make different variants of them and to try and perturb these conversations back and forth and see what happens. So that's what we're doing.

SP: Fascinating. So how's your research funded?

HB: So we're funded, thank goodness. It's a tough funding climate. But we're funded through the NIH, so the National Institutes of Health. And certain aspects of it are funded through the NSF, so that's National Science Foundation. And then I have some small private funding from private foundations too, like smaller chunks of money, which fund sort of other smaller aspects of what we do.

SP: How many people do you have in your lab?

HB: I have 11 people right now. 10 graduate students, 1 visiting scholar from Germany and then, I guess I have more-- I have 13 people. Then I have 2 undergrads too.

SP: So what is it like working with the graduate students.

HB: Oh, they're great. That's the best part. They're wonderful. Yeah, so they're 00:21:00really fun to work with and to motivate and to let them take things in there-- just like how I said I loved graduate school because I could kind of drive, it's wonderful to see them eventually just sort of pick up and go. They're like, see you. I'm going down this way with it. And it becomes their baby, which is really-- that's what a PhD should be. It's not me telling them exactly what to do because then you're a technician, right? To get a PhD you have to become a master of a certain area. And you know more about it than anyone else in the world, right? That's essential. So then you have to drive. So I like to see that in my students. So I don't try to micromanage them too much.

SP: Do you have to teach them how to write?

HB: Yes.

SP: Now you have to do a lot of writing. Does that come easy to you?

HB: Some days. It's a tremendous amount of writing. I mean this job has slowly just become all writing, really is what this job is. You're either writing grants or you're writing papers. And it's good. You have to be able to 00:22:00communicate what you do to the outside world to get money and so people actually know what you're doing. But yeah, teaching them how to write is also a big part of the job.

SP: How do you do it? What's your technique?

HB: Well I like to see them write a draft. And then I go through that draft with them and tell them how we need to change it. And then, usually once we've gone-- the first one can be a bit brutal. But then, it depends though. Some students come in, they've had more writing experience than others. Or if English is not their first language, then it becomes even more challenging. I tell them to look at a paper that we recently wrote. You know, they might not have written it, but look at how we lay that out and the logic of that. You know, apply that logic to your data.

But I find that I think the hardest thing for them is to write the introduction to a paper. Why am I actually doing this? And then the conclusion. Well now that 00:23:00I've done this, what does this tell me? Those are hard. Those are the questions which you only really acquire after you've really been immersed in the area for a long time. And those are the hardest part to write. So that's what I've found is, you know, spending time getting them to see that is important.

SP: Talk about your teaching responsibilities.

HB: OK, so I teach organic chemistry to undergraduates. So that's usually a big class, like 300 people. That's a required class for most biology students, chemistry students, engineering, like chemical engineering or biomedical engineering, pharmacy. So it's a huge number of people take that class.

SP: Now you're not the only one though. Are you the--

HB: I'm the only one-- well, we have different sections. So there's those other sections which have 200, 200, 200. Yeah, we teach about 1,100 a semester. So there's maybe four sections. And I teach either 200 or 300 of them.

SP: Do you enjoy that?

HB: Actually, I do. Some aspects of it I do. I try to energize them a bit about it. But most of them are terrified of organic chemistry, like they think it's this horrible course that's going to kill them. It's going to keep them from going to medical school. So I try to convince them that it really isn't that bad. And I also them that some people actually like it so much they go on and get PhDs in organic chemistry. They're like no. I'm like, yeah. Who do you think I am, right?

I always try to convince them that it's really not that bad.

SP: Now do you ever get to see them one on one or is that--

HB: Oh yeah. Then there's office hours, so they come in and see me. So yeah, that actually gets a little bit-- you have to control that. Because the more access you give them, the more they want to come. And if you're like accessible I think and they don't see you as this scary, crusty professor, then they're at your door even more often. So you have to control that because otherwise it will eat all of your time up.

SP: Now do you do anything online with them?

HB: Not really. The grading and that kind of stuff. And I have a website where 00:25:00we post stuff up there for them, but nothing-- I'm not really a master of that kind of stuff. And I have a pretty bare bones website where I just put the basics up.

Then I teach an undergraduate laboratory class to upper level undergrads, which is a great class. It's called Chem 346. I've been redeveloping this course over the past five years to change it and make it a better class with new labs. And they actually have to write up a really extensive lab report where they do a lot of writing. So I'm trying to get them to do some writing because these students need to learn some writing because they're not learning it elsewhere. So I make them write. It's writing intensive, it fills one of these writing intensive credits for the University, which is very few of those that science classes do. So that's kind of cool. That's been a lot of fun. That's my baby. I love that class.

SP: How many students in that?

HB: About 25.

SP: Oh, that's a nice size.

HB: It's a great class. And they're all chemistry majors most often. So it's really good. And then I teach a graduate class to the first year graduate students on organic chemistry. So this is more complicated organic chemistry. And that's a hard class to teach because the material is a lot more complicated and the students are very demanding with regards to it. Because you know, they're very energized and cutthroat about it. So it's a fun class because everyone's motivated and excited, but the material is at such a higher level that it can be-- I've got to be on my toes all the time. But with the undergraduate class, the stuff is pretty-- I mean, the material's really basic. It's like breathing. A lot of the stuff is like, I don't know how to teach this because it's like I don't think about it. But the other course is a bit harder.

SP: Now as a beginning faculty member, are you required to do committee work, administrative work?

HB: You have to do a bit. So you need to do some. You have to have some. Your tenure decision is based on three things, right? So research, teaching and service. Research and teaching I think are the higher level ones. You need to have done a little bit of service to your department to show that you have some commitment to it. I've been involved with the admissions, so I do graduate admissions for our organic area. And last year I was put in charge of it completely, but I've been gradually ramping up to that. So that's been my service, which is a very time-consuming aspect.

SP: Do you have any opportunities to get outside your department, to meet other women, or just other faculty?

HB: Yeah. There's a number of people in biochemistry because I collaborate with people in biochemistry, people in bacteriology. people in plant pathology. So I interact with them. And that's important because our research is getting quite 00:28:00biological, so I need to have contacts in those places so my students can learn techniques and things like that. And I have some contacts with people in chemical engineering also. So yeah, I'd say the younger faculty, the assistant faculty in those departments I'm aware of and I know.

SP: Are you involved in that mentoring program? Isn't there a mentoring program--

HB: There's a women faculty mentoring program. Yeah, I'm not involved with that. It just didn't happen. Luckily in this department I have some great mentors. Laura Kiessling who is 12 years older than me. She's in this department. She's fabulous. And being able to be her colleague was a huge-- I mean just that is a decision making factor to come here because she's so great. And she's a wonderful mentor to me. But then there's also been male mentors. So Sam Gellman is here. He's been here for over 20 years. He's also in the chemical biology 00:29:00area and has really been positive and great.

SP: I think I know the answer to this question then just from what you've said. But what about the climate for women on the campus? Do you think it helps or hinders people's advancement?

HB: I don't know. I was thinking about this the other day because we've been talking about diversity issues in chemistry and how we need to hire more women and like, I'm the only woman who's been hired in eight years. And I'm this little statistic. I just sort of have been gender blind. You know, I just sort of proceed forward and I just don't really think about hey, I'm the only-- I mean now and then I'm like, wow. I'm the only woman here. It doesn't really have that much of an impact on me. It'd be great to have some more women here just in terms of-- we can interact with a female colleague differently than you can with a male colleague. That's just how it is. You can talk more easily about certain 00:30:00things. I mean that would be beneficial, but I don't think-- it's not like something I lay up at night and wish there were more of. I haven't let it really slow me. And I think about it, when I was deciding on what department to come to and my husband and I had a number of offers, the issue of how many women were on the faculty was not an issue. I was like I want to go someplace with the best science. That was it. That was not a deciding factor for me, having that. But then again, I just told you that having Laura here, that was important.

SP: Yeah, and she's a great scientist and a woman.

HB: Yeah, it was really the science, right? She's a woman, yeah. That's great. But the science is really fantastic. And her and my research interests are really synergistic.

SP: What about students, what is the ratio of male to female students?

HB: Here we have when we let in-- I know this at least for the organic students 00:31:00it's 50/50 are graduate students. We do see more of them leaving though. So by the time they graduate it's probably down to about 30/70.

SP: Oh, that's interesting.

HB: Yeah. So that's an issue that we're thinking we need to deal with.

SP: What about the people that are in your lab?

HB: 50/50 in my lab.

SP: Well that's fun.

HB: Yeah. I try to keep it. I actually have some female colleagues who are at other universities and they find themselves attracting all the women, so then their lab becomes all women. And I think it's good to have some balance.

SP: I'm going to switch gears just a little bit. Are you involved in professional organizations? And if you are, do you find that that's important to your career?

HB: I'm a member of several professional organizations. So the American Chemical Society, the American Society for Microbiology and then the American-- what is 00:32:00it? The triple A, so the American Society for the Advancement of Science. Something like that. Yeah, something like that. American Association for the Advancement of Science. That's A-A-A-A. But I'm not active in any of those things. I mean I'm a member. I get the magazine. I get some of the benefits, but I'm not--

SP: You think you will be?

HB: I'm too young. And just recently some of my colleagues were asking me if I wanted to be on one of these steering committees in the ACS. I'm considering it. But right now it's more-- like what I'd get out of that, I'm not sure how-- it's not something that I see of utmost importance right now.

SP: I can imagine with the time constraints that you must--

HB: Yeah. If I was going to be on committee I'd rather have it somewhere in my direct-- like on campus or in the department. Someplace where it's going to actually impact my direct environment. You know, there's things that you see as 00:33:00you've been here for a while that, hm, I'd like-- it'd be nice if we could alter that. Sometimes the only way that you can actually alter something is for you to become in charge of it. And I can see myself looking to do certain aspects of that later on, but in terms of like committee work on a nationwide scale, no.

SP: I'm sure you'll be giving invited papers.

HB: Oh yeah. So that I've been doing. So I've been giving invited talks at meetings and at other universities. That aspect is part of being-- but serving on committees for those societies, that's not--

SP: How do you like giving the papers?

HB: Oh, that's fun. Yeah, that's really good. It's fun to go out and you sort of meet new people at these departments. And sometimes you get really good feedback, which is useful.

SP: Talk about awards and honors that you've received. I know you're early in your career, but I also know that you've received some.

HB: Yeah, I have. I recently received a couple of awards. This year actually, 00:34:00which is pretty cool. I got an award from 3M. So they give out an award, it's called the Non-tenured Faculty Grant. It's just a small chunk of money, but they give that to you, and it's just flexible money to work on your research. So that's nice, 3M being a local, relatively local player in Minneapolis. And I recently received a Young Investigator Award from DuPont. So that's another chemical company that's interested in supporting young faculty and giving them unrestricted funding, which is nice because it's hard to get unrestricted funding. Everything's usually kind of earmarked for certain things.

And then I got an award I'm really proud of just a couple of weeks ago, which is called the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award. So the Camille Dreyfus Foundation is a foundation founded by Camille and Henry Dreyfus to support research in the chemical sciences. So for chemical people, this award is really 00:35:00good for younger faculty. And it's an award, which recognizes people who have initiated a great research program, but also are committed to teaching. So you're called a teacher-scholar. So I just received that. So that I feel really-- I'm very proud of.

SP: That's great.

SP: Well we've come to the last questions in the interview. And this takes you away from work. If you would talk about your life after work. Could you talk about your family. How you balance your work and your family. How you stay energetic and healthy to get all of this done. And what do you do for fun and relaxation when you're not working?

HB: OK, so unfortunately I wish there was more time away from here to do all those things. So I don't have any kids yet, my husband I, we're thinking about that for the near future. When I'm not here I obviously like to spend time with him and our friends outside the lab doing usually outdoor things. I love to go hiking and camping. I like to run. So I try and run as much. We live near a 00:36:00conservancy out in Middleton, so I like to run through that. And my husband likes to cycle.

What else do we do to keep sane? I love to cook, so one thing I love to do when I'm not traveling around is actually make a nice meal at home and cook. I find that very sort of satisfying.

SP: Do you have to do a lot of traveling?

HB: Yeah, there's a lot of traveling, especially lately.

SP: Both of you?

HB: Yeah, because we've been giving a lot of talks. But we also like to travel a lot. So Dave and I like to take one trip to some tropical destination each year. We don't buy each other Christmas presents because we just use that money. We save it to have a nice trip at some point.

SP: So where did you go last year?

Last year, well we went to Puerta Vallarta in Mexico, which was nice. And the year before that we went to Costa Rica. And we've been to Mayan Riviera near 00:37:00Belize. Usually it's somewhere warm. So it's nice to go in January. I think this year we're going to branch out and go somewhere, perhaps maybe Thailand or something like that. Yeah, we do love to sort of travel.

SP: Sounds like you've got some time to yourself.

HB: Yeah. Well we just make that. This work will expand to fill every minute if you let it. I mean it will. It never ends. It's not like it's ever done.

SP: Do you ever sit down and count how many hours you work?

HB: Oh yeah. Yeah, we do. It's a lot. Yeah. So that's why I think we sort of force ourselves to take these breaks. Because otherwise, if we're here in town, we'll usually be here in our offices.

SP: Do your parents still live in Ohio?

HB: They do. So they live in Ohio. So unfortunately, it's 10 hours driving 00:38:00almost. So it's not the straightforward, easy quick visit. But you can fly their direct now luckily, on Continental. So it's nice you can fly to Cleveland. So yeah, I see them and that's good.

SP: Well we've come to end of the interview. But I don't want to turn the tape off if there's anything-- and we did go through this rather quickly. But again, I appreciate the fact that you had this much time and if there's anything else that you'd like to get on tape before I turn it off please feel free to keep talking.

HB: I think we've pretty much hit all the highlights. I feel very privileged to be involved in this. I think it's a great project and I'll be interested to see how it all comes out.

SP: Well thank you very much for doing it.

HB: Thank you.