V23I1 Special

12 President Mathieson, graduating students, families, friends and honoured guests: I t is a great honour to accept this honorary degree and to celebrate the achievements of this year’s graduates here at The University of Hong Kong. My own professional journey had its origins on the island of Hawaii, where I grew up in a small town, attended public schools and struggled to feel relevant in a world I imagined was passing me by. I loved math and science but this did not endear me to peers, who were less than complimentary of my geeky interests and passion for things like cryptograms, tiny sea urchins and hikes in the rainforest with my dad. As I was reflecting on my journey to where I am today, three things stood out from my experiences. The first is that mentors matter. I remember the time in college when I had done poorly on a chemistry exam after studying very hard for it, and I was discouraged. After having been so excited to study chemistry and apply that knowledge to biology, I found myself struggling to make the connection between balancing equations or calculating molarity and understanding the function of biological molecules. Meanwhile I was enjoying my French language and history classes, and I went to see my French teacher to ask about switching my major. “What’s your current major?” she asked. “Chemistry”, I replied. Without skipping a beat, she said “Oh, you should stick with Chemistry!” And she explained that although she loved teaching, she thought Chemistry offered many more career options. I credit her steady guidance, in part, for giving me the encouragement I needed to stay the course, continue through general chemistry and on to organic, analytical and eventually biochemistry classes that I found both challenging and fascinating. When at last I stood on the stage receiving my diploma in biochemistry in 1985, the path ahead looked long and open, filled with opportunities but also risks. Could I really become a professional scientist? The question was both exhilarating and terrifying to me. I went off to graduate school not quite sure how I would fare, but nonetheless full of anticipation. Over the next few years I worked on my graduate degree in Boston and then took on a post-doctoral position in Boulder Colorado to gain additional research experience before deciding on a career path. Along the way my dad was an unwavering supporter of my research adventures. Each time we got together, which was not that often given the distance between Hawaii and Boston or Boulder, the visit went the same way: Dad would sit down at the dinner table on our first evening together and ask “So, what’s happening in the lab?” And he would really want to know! This would begin a detailed discussion and debate about experiments I was doing and why I was doing them. I told Dad I was trying to understand how the molecules encoding