I was born in one of the most beautiful cities of the world, St. Petersburg, Russia. Growing up with two parents who were college professors, I learned about the demands the biology research and teaching made on them. I could, however, see the tremendous satisfaction they derived from this work. By the time I entered high school I had decided to follow in their footsteps. I have never regretted this decision, although my research did necessitate sacrificing time from leisure reading or going to the opera or beach. The reward was the opportunity to do research with members of Russian Olympic teams in rowing, boxing and figure skating. My study of the brain mechanisms of human time perception served to determine individual differences and their influence on athletic performance, coaching techniques, and choice of teammates/partners/opponents in sport. Working with elite athletes is incredibly rewarding. Observing their determination, will power and persistence helped instill in me these attributes so important to a researcher. My hard work paid off. By age of 27 I earned my Ph. D. in human physiology from St. Petersburg State University. I published 37 scientific articles related to electrophysiological mechanisms of time perception and a student textbook chapter on electroencephalographic techniques.

In 1992 I immigrated to the USA. This required that I start my professional career all over! I spent three years learning English. I worked as a baby-sitter, as a housekeeper, and eventually at a secretarial job. I had my credentials evaluated and subsequently obtained a teaching certificate and worked a substitute teacher at Martin Van Buren High School. It took me four years to return to the professional level I came from - that of an assistant professor at St. John's University, where I have been employed since then. The Biology Department has utilized my ability to give lecture courses in General Biology, Human Biology, Biology and Health. I also instruct computerized laboratory classes and wet labs in Physiology and General Biology. Intermittently I also was employed as an Anatomy professor at Queensborough Community College.

I consider myself very fortunate that most of my adult life I have been doing what I find the most challenging, intellectually stimulating and emotionally rewarding job - research and teaching biology. At the Dolan DNA Learning Center I started with on-the-job training. I have observed a lot of lessons given by my colleagues, attended summer workshops and teacher training program. This experience has reinforced my appreciation of how fortunate I am to be surrounded by people who are really passionate about biology and teaching. It gives me great pleasure to convey tough scientific concepts to a new generation. I hope to continue scientific research, satisfying my desire to learn how the human body and brain works, now on a deeper level - on the level of DNA. I am proud to be a part of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

While it never occured to me before, it was my moving to the U.S. that made me realize that my true calling was always in my name: it is Uwe - Up With Education. Working for the Dolan DNA Learning Center at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is like a dream coming true since it allows me to live out, in one job, my love for biology, people, teaching and computers. (By the way, Uwe is pronounced somewhat like "Oove" with the 'e' sounding like the 'e' in 'the' ...)

I was always interested in nature, out and about catching tadpoles and mosquito larvae, following the development of frog eggs and the growth of plants, and trying to find out how things work. At the same time, I was also always interested in helping people: I began tutoring my peers when I was still in elementary school and, when I entered high school, I became involved in working with children and youth in a low-income, inner-city area of my hometown in an industrial area in the west of Germany. In school, I was pretty much interested in any subject area (with the exception of English), and thought about becoming a social worker or, maybe, a teacher. However, this plan changed dramatically when, in my last year of high school, I learned about DNA. I became so excited about the fact that an alphabet of four letters, the nucleotides, could be sufficient to encode the instructions for all the different forms, structures and functions of life, that I changed my plan to the studying of biology. I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do with it but I was driven by the desire to learn and understand.

When I started college I was absolutely certain that I would never (ever!) read anything in English nor speak it in any significant manner ... This attitude changed, however, when I began my graduate studies in the Max-Planck Institute for Plant Breeding in Cologne, Germany: in the institutes of the Max-Planck Society, scientists from all over the world conduct cutting-edge research. Germans were rather a minority in my lab in the Schell department and I began to speak English on a daily basis. And, against all expectations, I enjoyed it! In Cologne, I examined the question of why a nitrogen-fixing soil bacterium would feed nitrogen to its symbiotic partner, a leguminous plant, instead of using it for its own needs. I had so much fun with this research that I spent eight years on it, first completing a Master's and then a Ph.D. degree. In 1992, upon completion of my studies, and because I had gotten used to speaking English (and needed a change in weather), I moved to Tucson, Arizona, to pursue research on fungi that cause plant disease. Plants have all types of defense mechanisms to protect themselves against pathogens and I had received a fellowship by the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation to find out how pathogenic fungi are able to overcome these natural defense mechanisms. At the time I had immersed myself deeply into bench science, not thinking I would ever work with anything else but microorganisms and DNA.

In 1995, I began to volunteer with elementary teachers in Tucson developing modules for the teaching of biology and science: hands-on, minds-on. I found this work so rewarding and the support by scientists for pre-college science education so important that I began working full-time in science education: I received a fellowship by the National Institute for Science Education (NISE), conducted research into the professional development of science teachers, became involved in educational outreach, and taught workshops for teachers. I also taught molecular biology to senior citizens and, from 1996-2000, served as curriculum coordinator and faculty advisor for 450 microbiology and veterinary science majors at the University of Arizona. I now develop workshops and teach the in's and out's of bioinformatics to high school students and biology educators. Overall, adapting to speaking English and moving to the United States has been a great experience for me ...

Born and raised in rural Ontario, Canada, I moved to Long Island with my family when my father became Professor of Family Medicine at SUNY Stony Brook.

My administrative work has taken several interesting paths, from music management and entertainment booking agencies to magazine publishing and insurance-related companies. I have also assisted my husband, a commercial photographer, with his varied and exciting projects.

Little did I realize that deoxyribonucleic acid was somehow in my future! It is an honor for me to support the DNA Learning Center West team, imparting such important knowledge to future generations.