In this interview conducted at the 2023 ACA meeting, Cora Lind-Kovacs, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Toledo, discusses her life and career in crystallography. She describes her early life and education in Germany, and her arrival in the United States to pursue graduate work on a Rotary Club fellowship. She recounts her graduate studies on inorganic materials, particularly negative thermal expansion (NTE) materials, working at the National Synchrotron Light Source. She discusses structural work conducted in collaboration with industrial partners, including an notable digression on the history of battery technology. Finally, she reflects on her teaching career, her involvement with the ACA, including her service as Vice President and President of the Society, and her highly successful sideline as an amateur martial artist.
In this interview, Jon Phillips, oral historian at AIP, interviews David Rose, Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Waterloo. In this interview, Dr. Rose discusses his education in physics and biology as an undergrad at Penn. He then discusses his graduate studies under David Phillips at Oxford University, and his introduction to crystallography while there. He describes his post-doctoral work with Gregory Petsko at MIT, and the growth of crystallography in the US at that time. He recounts his transition to the Canadian National Research Council in Ottowa, where he worked on protein crystallography and glycobiology. He goes on to discuss his move to the University of Toronto’s Princess Margaret Hospital, where he spent the majority of his career. Finally, Rose discusses his time at the University of Waterloo, teaching and research during the COVID-19 pandemic, and his tenure as President of the American Crystallographic Association.
In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Helen Berman, Professor Emerita at Rutgers, where she remains affiliated with the Proteomic Center and the Institute for Quantitative Medicine. Berman recounts her childhood in Brooklyn, her early adventures in science working in a lab at Barnard College, and she expounds on how Martin Buber’s “I-Thou” concept, which she learned as an undergraduate, continues to shape her thinking today. Berman explains her early interests and talents in crystallography, which she learned from Barbara Low of Columbia. Berman describes her decision to pursue her graduate degree at the University of Pittsburgh, where she worked with George Jeffrey and where she completed her dissertation on carbohydrate crystallography. She explains the sequence of events leading to her career at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia where she researched nucleic acids, and how a personal health scare led her to make a significant personal and career shift. Berman describes her early involvement with the Protein Data Bank at Brookhaven Lab and her vision to harness computational power to grow the PDB into a massive collaborative effort and the rise of structural bioinformatics. In the last portion of the interview, Berman describes her decisions to move to California, and her recent foray into documentaries that focus on human health issues HIV and diabetes, which stem from her broader interest in improving the way that scientists interface with the broader public.
