Rob Phillips (Caltech) & Lee Cudlip (Rob's Mom): How Rob Became a Scientist

https://www.ibiology.org/profiles/unc...

In an interview with his Mom (Lee Cudlip) at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Rob Phillips talks about his unconventional path to science and the important role his parents played in influencing his intellectual interests and supporting his life choices. Instead of attending college after high school, Phillips spent six years traveling, working odd jobs, reading books, and teaching himself physics. An encounter with a stranger while traveling across Europe inspired him to finally get a college degree, and so he enrolled in a “university without walls” program at the University of Minnesota. Phillips is now a professor of Biophysics and Biology at the California Institute of Technology and co-director of the Physiology course at MBL.

Speaker Biography:
Rob Phillips is the Fred and Nancy Morris Professor of Biophysics and Biology at the California Institute of Technology and co-Director of the Physiology summer course at the Marine Biology Laboratory. His research focuses on elucidating the physical phenomena of a variety of biological processes/systems, such as mechanosensation and gene regulation. He combines physical modeling with quantitative experimentation in his approaches. Along with Jane Kondev and Julie Theriot, he co-wrote the biophysics textbook, Physical Biology of the Cell, an exploration of how physics and math can be applied to understand biology at molecular and cellular levels.