CSHL reaching out to Alums

[Elizabeth Yong]

I came across your website and saw my name! Is Sundar (Venkatesan Sundaresan) still there? Did he ever find the dwarf gene that he was looking for in the maize seeds from Barbara McClintock? What about Joe Colasanti (can't remember the exact spelling of the name)?

Sad to say, but I didn't pursue sciences in University. In my freshman year, I was so overwhelmed by the competitiveness of most of the students in my science classes (mostly pre-med students) and underwhelmed by the poor resources of the science department at the time at Yale University (though I hear that they've substantially improved in recent years), that I gave up. I recognized that I was "spoiled" by my experience at Cold Spring Harbor, which I now recount as if a distant dream.

My fondest memories at CSH include: (1) trekking across tracks of maize in a greenhouse to select leaves for analysis, dropping them into canisters of liquid nitrogen, (2) riding in Joe's car along bumpy, windy roads, (3) running as many gels as I had room to at once, and (4) eating sushi for the first time at my farewell lunch. I never did manage to take advantage of the sailboats that were donated to the laboratory that everyone kept telling me about. One of my strongest memories, though not entirely unpleasant, was suffering a phenol-chloroform burn on my leg during the last weeks of my internship. I was carelessly working in shorts in the lab. I was very grateful for the quick thinking of my mentors, who quickly found something to absorb the phenol.

I did enjoy my experience at CSH tremendously. Although I didn't end up pursuing the sciences, I did help to edit the organic chemistry journal, "Tetrahedron Letters" for a while, while I was a college student.

I'm now married and living with my Singaporean husband in Hong Kong. We've been here two years. We're both working in the banking industry. He, himself, was a Chemistry major.

What impressed me most these days about my experiences at CSH were the relationships. Everyone I met was an individual. No one fit the "stereotype" of a scientist. CSH certainly didn't fit my stereotype of a lab! Sundar's passion and dedication, but very odd hours meant that he came in when I was about the leave in the aftenroon and left before I managed to come in in the morning. Joe brought back peaches from his family's farm in Canada. One mentor (I can't remember her name) dyed her hair colour every month or so, AND was one of the sweetest people in the world. Someone like that might have intimidated me before, but after meeting her, I knew better not to judge by appearances. Another told me when I was lamenting that I had never dated before that "Don't worry. Men are like buses. There's one every 10 minutes." That being said, I met my husband-to-be shortly afterwards freshman year and married him seven years later!

I would love to visit someday. Don't know when I would be in the area, but it would be good to know how one might go about doing that. Thank you so much for reaching out to "alumns".