Original Contributions

The audience discovered that one student's father had done a postdoc at Scripps Research. As a graduate student, another had given birth to two children—the second, five days after her thesis defense. One student participated in international judo competition. Another was a nationally ranked Scrabble player. Still another raced go-carts.

What the students had in common, however, was that they had made significant, original contributions to their scientific fields.