“As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been curious about the world around me — about everything in the world around me. Eat, breathe, do science... sleep later, that’s exactly what my life was like — all about the science.”

“...You're fighting with those tensions as you're growing up. Figuring out who you are. What you want to be. How you can be proactive in driving that storyline. This is what I was figuring out in eighth grade. Science was a way for me to discover my own interests, and who I was, and where I fit in all of that.”

“I was expected to have a strong opinion and to put it forward as strongly as my brothers did. So I think that attitude ... put me in a good place when I found myself the only girl in a class. I wasn't afraid to speak up and I didn't think I had to suppress my ideas so they'd like me.”

"What I loved about science was that you didn’t have to believe in it. It was an evidence-based system. It was an antidote to superstition. There were rules, and those rules were somehow comforting. I found just enormous solace in that."

“She just gives the biggest grin and you’re just looking at her, patting her chest, and she’s just looking right at you. And it’s so rewarding. It’s amazing just to look at her and have her attention. And there is a deep connection in that experience.”

“It was sort of like this feeling of like, ‘This is where I’m supposed to be; this is a cool laboratory for studying human decision making and human interaction in the way that we deal with uncertainty.'"

“I have over 1200 hours as a Mission Specialist on P3 flying all over the world. I've been on the submarine. I've been on a deep-diving submersible. We went down to 3000 feet where it's pitch black. I saw Schlitz beer can in the bottom of the Caribbean. I've been in helicopters. I've been on ice camps freezing myself off. It was outrageous.”

“I remember the day that I was sitting at my computer and, suddenly, I found these patterns that I had been looking for, but they came out in a way that I never expected and realized that no one had ever seen before.”

“People live on hope. They love life. But due to politics and restrictions there are suffering. No electricity. No water. Some lived in tents. It was bad…. This encouraged me to do something. Not only to rebuild their homes but to give them hope again.”

“My career started with helping people build and test and operate nuclear power plants, and now it’s decommissioning them and shutting them down. So it’s a strange feeling that, over a period of 50 years, this whole thing’s gone through this cycle.”

“I’ve always loved animals. Animals were my favorite everything. I had maybe 108…I had exactly 108 stuffed animals – tigers, big cats, everything like that. I watched all the documentaries I could.”

“I just don't understand why everybody doesn't want to understand biology. It's about you…I think understanding how our body works and how our health works really empowers people.”

“I know that science doesn't have all the answers but science is only based on the truth and reality. And I think that it's for everybody.”

“The reward from teaching is seeing the students accomplish what…they didn't think they could accomplish. It didn't matter about test scores. It mattered about... Okay, will they remember this class? And why would they remember the class?”

“I was really impressed with the movie Indiana Jones. I love the way he was dressed up and the work he does. And I liked mysteries. I like solving problems and that's why I chose to do paleontology.”

“People and community kids they should know about things found in their backyard. They should be proud of it and they should be a part of the discovery.”

“My father was a paleontologist...and one time I asked him, why do we have these rocks? What is it for? And then he said, ‘Well this is not just a rock… this is a fossil coral that lived over 400 million years ago in the Gobi Desert. So Gobi Desert used to be under the sea.’ Seeing with your eyes is another level of experience.”

“I remember going through the Kokoda Pass and seeing the Southern Cross come out, and the profusion of stars you get in the tropics, and seeing the sun as a burning ember on the horizon. And knowing that in the World War II, compatriots used this pass to bring our damaged aircraft home. It was a very special moment.”