6  About the Author

Regardless of how convinced we are of our own objectivity among STEM fields, communication remains a decidedly subjective activity. It is no surprise that they authors own experiences and opinions greatly influence the this work. In this section I take a few moments to discuss my own experiences and how they shaped my thinking in writing this book.

Reflecting on my experiences and motivations as a scientists, I’m often struck by those traits and behaviors which I took for granted but turned out to be uncommon among my peers. Two stand out in particular. I was curious about a wide variety of topics, and I continue to be. I recall when I was bored as a doctoral student, I would refer to one of the many saved bookmarks on my web browser to scan the table of contents of a “topics in …” or “Annual Review of …” articles. Anything that. In my first real lab posting at the Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology in Singapore, I relished in the afternoon lull when I had a chance to go to the library and peruse books from academic publishers. I continued the practice as a doctoral student when in a small Germany town I could retreat to the library. It was here that I read a biography of Ernst Myer, the renowned ornithologist and later director of the Natural History Museum in New York. In this detailed biography it was recounted how he would have two breakfasts, waking up around 5:00 with a coffee and toasts and settling in to read the some journal articles, before enjoying a later breakfast. The purpose in recounting these experiences is that it built a firm belief in just being exposed to and absorbing information not explicitly relevant or even related to the actual project at had. I found that this perspective was not shared by many scientific colleagues. Information was there to be consumed only when needed, and thus exposure to themes was justly so. It is along these lines that I was attracted to Lawrence Weschler’s _Everything that Rises – A Book of Convergences –.

I was also more interested in the process of science that actually doing science.

I realized that I enjoyed working with scientists more than I enjoyed working as a scientist.

This book, then, represents my attempt to reconcile the disparate strands of my ideas borne out of experience. A call for more compassion and understanding among our own ranks.