Pioneer Member

Eliot Herman – Maarten Chrispeels was my Ph.D. advisor and so he had an enormous influence of my career to follow in the physiology and molecular biology of seeds. Maarten encouraged and supported my finding my own way in the development of my dissertation project. So doing original research was to a great degree my own original research guided by Maarten as I navigated all the small successes and failures inherent in any research project. Beyond the specifics of my own project, with Maarten’s guidance I learned how to do scientific research. Maarten has a terrific talent for recognizing important problems, but more importantly he could recognize how these problems can be addressed with available techniques and to recruit the personnel who can fill the gaps to complete a team to bring a project to fruition. Through him I learned science is much akin to chess, one must look moves ahead to reach the goal, and this requires knowledge, wisdom, and leadership, all of which Maarten possesses in abundance. In the years since I graduated and moved on with my own career I occasionally collaborated on various projects and each of these renewed my admiration of Maarten’s knowledge, synthesis, and completion of each project.