CAREER VIEW |Vol 447|31 May 2007

MOVERS MENTORS & PROTÉGÉS Carla Shatz, director, BioX, , Stanford, California Award-winning commitment

Walter Dodds, a professor at says one of the many students who Kansas State University in Manhattan, wrote in to support Dodds’s 2000–07: Professor and chair, likes to do research and to analyse nomination, adding that he “keeps in Department of Neurobiology, data, but he likes encouraging his touch with his past students, meeting Harvard Medical School, students even more. This year, the up for dinner at conferences”. Boston, Massachusetts university’s biology graduate student Other supporters note that Dodds 1992–2000: Professor of association presented Dodds with the is always eager to work on field trips neurobiology, University of Outstanding Graduate Faculty award. and lab demonstrations — even in California, Berkeley Among the criteria for this honour cleaning up — and that he strives to 1978–91: From assistant were teaching skills, mentorship, the end all his graduate courses with a to full professor, Stanford cultivation of learning opportunities, publication that lists all students as University, Stanford, participation in graduate student authors. Quick to stem the tide of self- California committees and publication and doubt that engulfs all graduate grants record. students at some point, he is Dodds teaches limnology and understanding and flexible towards Carla Shatz has blazed a trail of firsts for women in aquatic and microbial ecology, their family lives. During hours off, he . Along the way, she has mentored a number sciences that arouse his enthusiasm invites students to the pub, or to enjoy of female scientists. She thinks that most girls are in the classroom and on field trips to his harmonica-playing in the locally interested in science, but many simply lose interest under nearby streams in the Konza Prairie. renowned Red State Blues Band. pressure from society. His contagious zeal makes learning Dodds’s professional accolades are After a chemistry degree from the Radcliffe Institute for come naturally. impressive. His research has so far Advanced Study at Harvard, she received a Marshall Dodds says his goals are to secured several million dollars in Fellowship to University College London and spent the next “nurture a love for scientific research”, extramural support for the university, two years learning about physiology and biological systems. and “make students successful in and his long list of publications Shatz returned to the United States to receive the first their career paths”. Students find this documents a robust career of quality doctorate in neurobiology from Harvard — in part because fosters a passionate and professional science. It was not his career, she thought the move would offer broader opportunities. attitude towards their work. As well however, that prompted so many Being mentored by David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel, who as serving on almost every committee letters of support to the award were conducting Nobel-prizewinning science detailing how of students whose research relates to committee. It was his intangible knack the brain is wired, made it an even smarter move. aquatic ecology, Dodds recently of mentorship, the ability to convey to “I got interested in this incredibly beautiful computational worked with other faculty members to students the idea that, in fact, they are machine, and I wanted to see how the heck it was wired up create a course on professional skills his finest achievement. ■ during development,” she says. in biology — a core requirement for Ron VanNimwegen is a PhD For her first job, Shatz’s strategy was to go to the place incoming graduate students. candidate in biology at Kansas that really wanted her. When Stanford University came “His door is always open for us,” State University. calling, Shatz accepted. There, she became the first female basic scientist to be granted tenure at the medical school. After 13 years at Stanford, she spent the next eight at the POSTDOC JOURNAL University of California, Berkeley, where she tried to establish an interdisciplinary neuroscience institute. Frustrated by a lack of administrative support, Shatz Loose ends accepted an offer to be the first woman to chair Harvard’s My PhD supervisor once told me that your thesis is never really completed. neurobiology department. “I couldn’t turn it down because I Given that his PhD, like mine, involved palaeomagnetic measurements of felt I was on a mission to represent women at the highest crustal deformation in New Zealand, I had good reason to believe him. Indeed, levels of the university,” she says. But she says the I’ve discovered for myself that an academic move hasn’t meant a completely competition for space and resources were difficult to handle. clean slate, because I’ve brought a fair amount of unfinished business with me Having always hoped to return to Stanford, Shatz will soon to the Southern Hemisphere for my postdoc. be leading its BioX programme, which merges science, Some of this was unexpected — it turns out that the small matter of 5,000 medicine and technology. Stanford neurobiologist William miles hasn’t stopped some students I’d been supervising from soliciting my Newsome describes Shatz as an ideal leader for BioX advice. But I also find my old research still claiming my attention. I have papers because she has used a host of approaches — from on New Zealand tectonics and the growth of magnetic minerals in marine anatomy to molecular biology to physiology — to show that sediments to correct, finish or even start writing, and I still find myself adding brain development is not solely under genetic control. new papers on these subjects to my to-read pile. Shatz says that she sees her biggest challenge as Having more publications is nice, but this is not my only motivation: I’m also integrating BioX with other departments. convinced that the best way to develop as a researcher is to move away from a single-minded focus on one project, and keep several lines of inquiry open. This Former colleagues eagerly await her return. “BioX means following up on the questions raised by my past research as well as my already has fruit, but Carla will grow that tree and expand current project. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll also find myself supervising a its influence,” says Susan McConnell, a former graduate PhD… using palaeomagnetism to measure deformation in New Zealand. ■ student of Shatz, adding that one of her many exceptional Chris Rowan is a postdoc in the geology department at the University of Johannesburg, ■ talents is facilitating long-lasting communities. South Africa. Virginia Gewin

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