I like P.B.S.

So Dr. Z has asked me to write about which scientist I would invite to visit and speak at UTPA if I could ask any living biologist...interesting. At first I had a tough time coming up with someone I would ask and why, but after a while I remembered an individual I saw a program on a few weeks ago. I was up late one night and I found an interesting piece on P.B.S. about a young, female scientist showing so I stopped flipping through the channels and watched. It described her life so far like this: She was born I believe, in Israel and immigrated with her family to the East Coast of the United States at the age of two. Once she reached school age it was clear that she excelled academically especially in the areas of math and science. She ended up having a real passion for these subjects and decided to pursue her studies in these fields at Harvard University. She went onto develop an algorithm which is now commonly used in genetic research and currently teaches Genetics at Harvard. Her brilliance and youth were initially what captivated my attention but as the program went on, I began to notice as I was listening to her speak about her work, that she really, honestly loved what she did. She said a couple of things which caught my attention more than anything else. One of them was that when asked to describe herself she said, "I am a scientist." She gave a much more detailed response than that but ultimately, fundamentally that's who she said she was and the fact that she said it with such enthusiasm was what left an impression on me. The memory stuck in my brain and after some time spent thinking about Dr. Z's prompt for the week I was able to recall her-the way she spoke with such passion and fluidity about her work-it was fascinating to watch. The other thing she said was something to the effect that if you do what you love, you'll be alright. I don't think that's true 100% of the time, but I'd like to believe it's true for the most part. I know, I know, I'm young and naive but what the heck? This is starting to sound too much like the conclusion of a Grey's Anatomy episode so I'll stop now and say that I'd invite Pardi (that's her first name, I can't remember her last name right now) because she loves her science (which happens to be a field of Biology-Genetics) and it's always refreshing to listen to someone speak about something they genuinely love.