A Personal Tribute

After the keynote address, one at a time, the students' advisors took the podium to offer personal remarks about each of the 21 Ph.D. candidates—including his or her unique character and outstanding scientific 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-one 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.