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ALUMNI Nothing to Fear Travels with a snake lover

At left: Kate Jackson with Nerodia sipedon, the snake that started it all, at Lake Ontario. Above: In the Republic of Congo, Jackson exultantly displays two (dead) cobras.

“We have wonderful students—one, now, who is extremely intense about hairy frogs—but Kate is truly di≠erent. Some- one who loves venomous snakes has to be a little eccentric.” Her dissertation examined the mor- phology and evolution of snakes’ venom- delivery apparatus. This entailed getting cobra eggs from a zoo, on the condition they not be allowed to hatch. “I didn’t know what the incubation period was— they hadn’t been studied before—and every day I was opening one egg” to doc- ument its development, she explains. Few people devote their lives to crea- Scientific aspirations came early. At 11, “One day, when a little snake came out tures that have frightened and killed hu- she dreamt of being curator of the Jersey and spread its hood and hissed at me, I mans throughout history. Herpetologist Wildlife Preservation Trust in the Chan- thought, ‘This is as close to hatching as I Kate Jackson, Ph.D. ’02, whose work with nel Islands—a pioneering zoo for conser- want to go.’” venomous snakes has led her to remote vation—so her parents took her there. “I Her doctoral supervisor, James Han- Africa and Latin America, cannot explain wrote a letter, and the assistant curator ken, professor of biology and curator of her own fascination, except to say that it wrote me back suggesting books I could herpetology and director of the Museum predates kindergarten. read, and which animals would make of Comparative Zoology (MCZ), praises The first live snake she saw, at about age good pets,” she says. In junior high school, her contributions as a “very good, popu- five, was a Nerodia sipedon (a common water a biology teacher let her keep a few pets lar” teacher and scientist. Using new in- snake), which her sister accidentally threw in the classroom, and paid for an enclo- formation gained by biologists in the last at her in a pail of water while they played on sure for the alligator. 20 years about relationships among the shore of Lake Ontario. Her parents indi- Even by academic standards, Jackson’s species on a molecular level, Jackson ex- rectly fed the passion. “I went to a French dedication and daring fieldwork are un- haustively reexamined the evolution of school in Toronto, and to make sure that I usual. “She is a congenital herpetologist— snakes’ venom glands, associated muscles, learned French, they gave me books on rep- the woman loves serpents,” says Agassiz and fangs. She pored over eighteenth- and tiles, because they knew I would feel com- professor of zoology Farish A. Jenkins Jr., nineteenth-century scientific literature pelled to read them,” Jackson says. who sat on her dissertation committee. and conducted her own dissections, elec-

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tron microscopy, and detailed embry- contributed to her unwillingness to fol- gist, concurs. “To go to Congo alone is ologic studies. “It’s not like people hadn’t low Hanken’s advice about shaping her kind of crazy,” he says. “I mean, I go to the looked at these things before,” Hanken dissertation so that it would appeal to Arctic with collaborators and I’m armed says, “but it’s rare to find anyone who potential employers. “She’s very persis- to the teeth.” considers all the data simultaneously.” tent, which is good in the field,” he says. Nevertheless, Jackson traveled in Sep- Jackson concluded that the earliest “But she can be stubborn.” tember to the remote Likouala District of venom-delivery apparatus formed in the She was known as a risk-taker within northern Congo, having wrapped up her Miocene (between 25 million and 10 mil- the department. In 1997, she went to the postdoctoral position at the University of lion years ago), and that later, three sepa- relatively stable Republic of Congo (not Toronto. (She studied the sensory organs rate lineages independently evolved more the war-torn Democratic Republic of of three crocodiles housed in the depart- sophisticated versions, a process called Congo) to collect specimens for the MCZ. ment lab, and was the only one who would convergent evolution. (“The exciting Toward the end of the trip, she had to be pick them up.) Once in Congo, essentially thing,” Hanken adds, “now that we have airlifted out of the forest to a Camaroon on her own, she waited three weeks in more robust information on relationships, hospital where she spent 10 days recover- vain for a local wildlife-refuge o∞cial to is that there seem to be more instances of ing from a swamp-borne, systemic infec- give her a collecting permit. Finally she parallel evolution than people had sus- tion that began in a tiny scratch on her decided to pay a local Bantu chief to let pected previously.”) She also found sig- leg. The initial dizziness hit her while she her camp adjacent to the refuge with a nificant evidence that, counterintuitively, was alone in the forest and worsened as hired cook and a guide, two tarpaulins, harmless snakes evolved from poisonous she lurched and swayed along, following mosquito nets, and some pots and pans. ones, losing a presumed advantage. a trail of thread she had unspooled to The trio lived together on a rare dry mark a return path to the satellite camp, patch of land surrounded by flooded Jackson has no interest in the role where she collapsed in the tent with a forests for five weeks during the rainy snakes have played in legends and myth- high fever. Two fellow researchers nursed season and collected about 130 specimens her through the night and helped get her of rare snakes, lizards, and frogs (includ- back to the base camp and then on to a ing at least one species that may be com- French lumber camp, from which she was pletely new to the scientific community), evacuated two days later. all of them destined for the Smithsonian Poisonous snakes, her specialty, o≠er Institution, which paid for much of the their own set of dangers. Neurotoxins re- trip. “Central Africa is sort of a black hole leased in a bite gradually paralyze the for herpetology,” says Jackson. “There are body but leave the victim conscious until tons of places to go where no herpetolo- the very end. “What kills you is that the gist has ever been and where, within a diaphragm stops moving and the heart couple hundred kilometers, you find no stops beating,” Jackson explains. She has overlap in species. It is that diverse.” had a few close calls. She let a “playful lit- Money in Congo for such scientific en- tle snake” slither through her fingers more deavors is scarce. One professor she met than once before realizing that it was a at Brazzaville University had a fledgling baby forest cobra and laying it down “gen- fish collection in old mayonnaise and jam tly—no sudden moves,” embarrassed that jars, but had so little formalin that only she had misidentified the creature. “We half of each creature could be preserved. have all taken risks and made mistakes in “A lot of biodiversity in Africa is being the field and gotten away with it,” she lost at a terribly fast rate,” confirms James says. But not always. In 2001, internation- Hanken. “Many species that have not yet In her makeshift laboratory in Congo, Jackson ally known herpetologist Joseph Slowin- even been formally described are proba- takes tissue samples from a recent catch. ski, on his eleventh trip to Burma, with bly going to go extinct before they are ology across cultures, or in their various dozens of researchers, was bitten by a named.” symbolic meanings; “I just like the real baby krait no thicker than a pencil—and Jackson herself hopes to publish a book thing,” she says (see www.zoo.utoronto.- up to 15 times more deadly than a cobra. on the largely undocumented snakes of ca/kjackson). “The science I do is unfash- He died before a rescue helicopter arrived. Central Africa, research begun during her ionable. I don’t study molecules in a lab. I first visit to Congo. In addition to collect- do the kind of fundamental exploration Last year, Jackson approached Hanken ing for the Smithsonian, she is working that scientists did 200 years ago to study about funding an independent research with the Congolese National Laboratory [the earth’s] mammals. We’re just way be- trip—a return visit to Congo. He refused. on Public Health to reduce deaths from hind on amphibians and reptiles.” Such “Congo is a politically di∞cult place to snakebite (a significant problem, because singlemindedness has aided her career as work,” he explains. “And a dangerous virtually no antivenoms are available). a scientist and explorer, but probably place to go.” Farish Jenkins, a paleontolo- She is also seeking to train Congolese

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graduate students in biodiversity tech- to go around its head. She threw a snake and measurements. Then she killed the niques and hoping to open a small local bag at its mouth and “while it had its teeth snake, removed a piece of its liver for museum of fauna, “so they don’t have to in the bag, I went in, lightning fast, and DNA sequencing, injected the carcass rely on researchers like me to tell them grabbed its neck and held on tight, be- with formalin, wrapped it in toilet paper what they’ve got.” cause it was wet and slippery,” she recalls. (they were out of cheesecloth), and stored “If it had gotten out even a centimeter, it it in a plastic bag. Every day in the field, Jackson and would have bitten me. Cobras are not as Jackson says convincingly that she feels her guide, Etienne Bokobela, waded into fast as vipers, but they are more clever.” no fear while working. “It doesn’t occur to the forest’s waters—chest-deep in some Once she had it by the throat, Bokobela me. People are frightened by di≠erent places—to check the fishnets they used cut o≠ the netting with his machete. They things,” she explains. “It is just in my char- to catch snakes that swim along the sur- carried the creature back to camp, emp- acter to be brave and reckless and inde- face. “It was like Christmastime,” she tied out the largest plastic supply bin pendent.” On her apartment wall hangs a says. “You get to see what you’ve got.” they had, threw in a cloth doused with poster of the great British admiral Horatio One day something was thrashing about chloroform, and Jackson pushed the Nelson, whom she has revered since she furiously. Using all her strength, Jackson snake in, head-first, and shut the lid. “I was 10. “He conquered Napoleon on the lifted the net and saw a snake whose head was trying at that point to slow it down a seas and he did it by ignoring orders to re- and neck were as thick as her forearm. little bit so I could take it out—I wanted treat and forging ahead,” she says. “He lost They had a water cobra (Boulengerina an- a picture of a live snake, not a dead one,” an eye and an arm, but he won the battle.” nulata) that turned out to be six and a half she explains. “And that’s a dodgy decision Jackson’s recent spoils include the feet long. The 24-inch tongs she used to to make, because they can recover quite water cobra, a species of frog she thinks grab snakes from the water were useless; quickly once they get some clean air in has not been mentioned in the literature her hemostat wouldn’t open wide enough their lungs.” She got her photograph— since 1924, and a roadkill snake possibly

Ballots, Please

This spring, alumni vote for a new group of Harvard Over- For Elected Director (three-year term, six to be elected): seers and for elected directors of the Harvard Alumni Associa- Neal Baer, Ed.M ’79,A.M. ’82, M.D. ’96.Toluca Lake, Calif. Ex- tion (HAA) board. ecutive producer,NBC’s Law & Order: SVU, Universal City, Calif. Ballots should arrive in the mail by April 15 and must be re- Jeffrey Behrens ’89. Newton, Massachusetts. Principal,Adviza ceived back in Cambridge by noon on June 2 to be counted. Consulting. Results of the election will be announced at the HAA’s annual James Bell ’89. Greenwich, Conn. Executive producer, Today meeting on June 8, on the afternoon of Commencement day. Show, NBC News, New York City. All holders of Harvard degrees, except Corporation members Mary McGrath Carty ’74. Belmont, Massachusetts. Executive and officers of instruction and government, are entitled to vote director,The Lenny Zakim Fund, Boston. for Overseer candidates. The election for HAA directors is Linda Hotchkiss ’74, M.D. ’78. Grosse Pointe, Michigan. open to all alumni. Physician,Trinity Health Organization. Patrik Johansson, M.P.H. ’01. Washington, D.C. Physician; in- For Overseer (six-year term, five to be elected): structor of social medicine, Harvard Medical School; Kerr White Arne S. Duncan ’86. Chicago. CEO, Chicago Public Schools. visiting scholar,Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; na- Sandra Faber, Ph.D. ’72. Monte Serena, Calif. Professor of as- tive investigator,University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. tronomy, University of California, Santa Cruz. Linda Kartoz-Doochin, M.B.A. ’79. Nashville. Community Leila T. Fawaz, Ph.D. ’79. Cambridge. Professor of history volunteer. and diplomacy, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts Linda Niessen, D.M.D. ’77, M.P.H. ’77, M.P.P. ’82. Dallas.Vice University, Medford, Massachusetts. president, clinical education, Dentsply International. Ricardo H. Hinojosa, J.D. ’75. McAllen, Texas. U.S. District Christina Tchen ’78. Chicago. Partner, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Court judge. Meagher & Flom, LLP. Henry W. McGee III ’74, M.B.A. ’79. New York City. President, HBO Video. The HAA nominating committee proposes Overseer and Ann Moore, M.B.A. ’78. New York City. Chairman and CEO, elected director candidates each year. The committee’s 13 vot- Time Inc. ing members include three current or former Overseers and 10 Emily Pulitzer, A.M. ’63. St. Louis. President, Pulitzer Founda- other alumni chosen by the HAA executive committee. Over- tion for the Arts. seer and HAA elected-director candidates may also be nomi- Robert N. Shapiro ’72, J.D. ’78. Cambridge. Partner, Ropes & nated by means of petitions signed by a prescribed number of el- Gray, Boston. igible degree holders and filed by a set date early in the year.

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not known to exist previously in Congo. any academic spot; a museum with a strong The Harvard Club of Chile has been a At press time, she was at the Smithsonian fieldwork program might be ideal. “What I model of revitalization, largely due to the to begin the identification and cataloging don’t want, after 25 years of knowing that I expansion of its board to include repre- process. want to be a herpetologist, is to get a job sentatives of the professional schools and Meanwhile, another trip to Congo is in teaching human physiology to undergradu- to its significant outreach activities. To store—as soon as she finds funding, and a ates,” she says. “I’m not that interested in better serve and engage alumni in Chile new job. Jackson does not fit neatly into humans.” �nell porter brown and neighboring countries, the club has sponsored a series of academic and social events, including a dinner with Chile’s HAA Clubs gram that could be used nationwide. minister of justice, Luis Bates. The club Committee Awards Rodney D. Hardy ’60, of Edina, Min- has also worked closely with the regional The haa clubs committee presents nesota. Hardy has twice served as presi- o∞ce of Harvard’s David Rockefeller Cen- two annual awards for contributions to dent of the Harvard Club of Minnesota, ter for Latin American Studies to help Harvard clubs. most recently in 2004-2005. He and his Harvard students studying in Chile, and Recipients of the 2005 Outstanding successor, Todd Peterson ’84, M.B.A. ’87, now plans to create a scholarship fund for Club Contribution Award are: oversaw the club’s transformation into a Chilean students attending Harvard. William D. (“Dren”) Geer Jr. ’56, of University-wide organization. This in- The Harvard Club of Switzerland has Sarasota, Florida. Geer has been active on cluded merging with the previously inde- an outstanding participation record, with the Harvard Club of Sarasota’s board for pendent Harvard Business School Club of 910 current members, many of them grad- nearly a decade, and is the current club Minnesota and inviting alumni from all uates of the Business School. The club of- president. His contributions include the the University’s graduate and professional fers an e∞cient on-line system for paying development of a “Teacher of the Year” schools to join the new organization. In dues and is developing a website. Another program through which the club recog- preparation for its 125th anniversary, the key to its success is a committee and nizes a local teacher who is given a sti- club also waived 2005–2006 dues, which board structure that o≠ers “stability, clear pend and invited to a Harvard Graduate has resulted in a 10-fold rise in member- leadership, and representation from dif- School of Education (GSE) summer semi- ship. Hardy, who is also a leader of his ferent alumni constituencies and regions.” nar; the trip is paid for by the club and class, has served as HAA regional director Alumni participate in a well-promoted se- the local school board. Geer is also work- for the North Central States and is a long- ries of 14 events annually. ing on further collaborations between standing HAA committee member. the Sarasota County schools and the The Harvard Clubs of Chile and Swit- Comings and Goings GSE that could result in a model pro- zerland won Club Recognition Awards. University clubs o≠er a variety of stim- ulating gatherings. Here is a list of Harvard-a∞liated A Special Notice Regarding Commencement Exercises speakers appearing at local clubs this winter. For de- Morning Exercises, Thursday, June 8, 2006 tails, contact the club in To accommodate the increasing number of those wishing to attend Harvard's Commencement Exercises, the following question, call the HAA guidelines are proposed to facilitate admission into Tercentenary Theatre on Commencement morning: (617-495-3070), or go to • Degree candidates will receive a limited number of tickets to Commencement. Parents and guests of degree candi- dates must have tickets, which they will be required to show at the gates in order to enter Tercentenary Theatre. Seating www.haa.harvard.edu. capacity is limited, however there is standing room on the Widener steps and at the rear and sides of the Theatre for On March 2, the Har- viewing the exercises. vard Club of Broward Note: A ticket allows admission into the Theatre, but does not guarantee a seat. The sale of Commencement tickets is County hosts Thier pro- prohibited. fessor of medicine David • Alumni/ae attending their major reunions (25th, 35th, 50th) will receive tickets at their reunions. Alumni/ae in classes beyond the 50th may obtain tickets from the Classes and Reunions O∞ce, 124 Mount Auburn Street, sixth floor, Blumenthal for a talk on Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138. “The History and Politics • Alumni/ae from non-major reunion years and their spouses are requested to view the Morning Exercises over large- of Medicare.” Also on screen televisions situated in the Science Center, Sanders Theatre, most of the undergraduate Houses and professional March 2, Cabot professor schools. These locations provide ample seating, and tickets are not required. of social ethics and Pforz- • A very limited supply of tickets will be made available to all other alumni/ae on a first-come, first-served basis through the Harvard Alumni Association, 124 Mount Auburn Street, sixth floor, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138. heimer professor of Rad- cli≠e Mahzarin Banaji will Afternoon Exercises discuss “Mind Bugs: The The Harvard Alumni Association’s Annual Meeting convenes in Tercentenary Theatre on Commencement afternoon. Psychology of Ordinary All alumni and alumnae, faculty, students, parents, and guests are invited to attend and hear President Lawrence H. Prejudice” at a Graduate Summers and the Commencement Speaker deliver their addresses. Tickets for the afternoon ceremony will be available through the Harvard Alumni Association, 124 Mount Auburn Street, sixth floor, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138. School of Arts and Sci- �Jacqueline A. O’Neill, University Marshal ences event at the Har- vard Club of New York

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