This professor was obviously on the jury, and I wanted to stay the faculty’s blessed son, and so I trusted external validation at this point in my life more than my own creative compass. So, like a lemming, I followed his advice. I spent the whole night undoing eight months’ work and recutting the film. And the next day, I presented this hacked up Frankenstein to the faculty, who absolutely demolished it.

So I really tried everything, including, you know, just how to build the team in such a way that I delegate everything, and I have my different business lines, and arrange things. This is sort of after the IPO, and I realized I have to be a very “serious” public company CEO. And so it almost killed the company, honestly.

But it was really – it came across sinister. And for me, I really did listen to it. I accepted it. I tried to implement that. The reason why I say it’s the worst advice I ever received was that it was damaging to me because she was totally wrong. ... And so, when somebody who is successful tells you to do something, you try to do it, even when it damages you.

there are really very many. Again, as a child, it was obviously those scientists which had lived in the past that had made such an important mark in science history.

As I was starting my academic career, it was almost considered to be a negative signal to your career to get involved in politics ... But to me that was a sign you were doing something useful.

Sherry offered me a list of research options: the one project that intrigued me the most consisted of finding out the environmental fate of certain very inert industrial chemicals – the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) – which had been accumulating in the atmosphere and which at that time were thought to have no significant effects on the environment. This project offered me the opportunity to learn a new field – atmospheric chemistry – about which I knew very little; trying to solve a challenging problem appeared to be an excellent way to plunge into a new research area.

I had a number of very good teachers in high school, in fact. Some mathematics teachers that perhaps allowed me the freedom to go beyond the normal routine of the class and to explore some more advanced areas. The same thing happened in college. I was able to communicate with a few of my teachers and professors, and go beyond the normal expectations. And then, as I mentioned before, Professor Pimentel, my mentor for graduate studies, was really influential in terms of the influence that he had for me.

I then converted a bathroom, seldom used by the family, into a laboratory and spent hours playing with chemistry sets. With the help of an aunt, Esther Molina, who was a chemist, I continued with more challenging experiments along the lines of those carried out by freshman chemistry students in college.

proud of recognizing that as a scientist, it was not only important to do research and find new things. I also felt a responsibility to apply them for the benefit of society.