Ken Nealson

It’s not often that you walk away from a seminar, feeling totally inspired and rejuvenated by the presenter. I had the good fortune to attend a very well-delivered seminar by Ken Nealson last week. His presentation style is remarkable. He was able to deliver his science in an engaging manner. He was inspiring for he challenged the audience to making daring hypotheses that were not thought of by peers in the same field. He was quick to point out that the work was not done by him alone but by a whole team of students and postdocs and collaborators. While I was still a PhD student reading those papers published by big names like Ken Nealson, David Stahl, Gary Olsen and so on, I often thought when would I have the opportunities to meet them. At that stage, those names are big names that are revered highly, and of so many miles apart that I would not even dare to think that I would have the chance to interact with them. After I moved to US to do science, I’ve learnt that big names do not always mean that they are doing good science. Neither does it mean they are having good reputation or necessarily inspiring. There are only a few that are really on par with their reputation. And I had the good fortune to experience one such person while I am here in UIUC.