When I was a kid the only person I wanted to be was The Doctor. He was cool in a not-cool sort of way. Mysterious, eccentric, deeply intelligent, morally intriguing, grave one moment-giddy the next (that is to say, mercurial) and, of course, he owned an amazing piece of future technology called a time machine, which, to be honest, was interesting to me but not as much as his personage itself. It was merely the plot device for moving his character around. The shows that really got my Who nerd going were the ones that revealed elements of his past. The Invasion of Time, for example, in which 4th Doc becomes president of the Time Lords, etc., etc. Amazing episode arc btw. Then, during the long show hiatus, the novels, which really hit on the inner life of the Doctor, in a way the show itself rarely explored until the latest resurgence of Docs 9-12 which I must admit I have not had time to keep up with.

The fictitious role model of The Doctor really guided those growing up years and, later, my conscious (or were they?) career choices. The heart of the Doctor’s genius was knowledge, that is to say, science, although clearly he was an intergalactic history buff as well. So in all my spare time (when not watching his latest episode or adding to my vast collection of episode novelizations), I would check out sci/math/history texts from the local library and soak in as much of it as I could understand as a pre-teen kid growing up in small town WA. I enjoyed amazing my friends with a chemistry kit and the liveliness of chemistry compared to the dryness (at least, in my opinion) of physics set me going in that direction. One thing led to another and I had my B.Sc.[Hons] with a double major in Chemistry and was headed off to graduate school.

Like the Doctor (who stole a time machine to leave Gallifrey), I travelled abroad (but no stealing involved), leaving behind home, friends and family, to start a new life on foreign soil. My quest was to pursue knowledge and become an expert in the intricate world of quantum chemistry. It was intense, sometimes resulting in severe mental contortions to understand how different phenomena were linked, or how to coax wavefunction convergence out of the computer, yet at the same time it was deeply fulfilling. I enjoyed the process of learning something that nobody had ever learned before, performing original research. Being able to use a computer to simulate the reactions and properties of chemicals was, and still is, amazing to me.

I felt like the Doctor, peering into the invisible, but using the fundamental rules of the universe to shed light into the darkness, to find the order in what might otherwise seem to defy understanding.

Coming out of the Ph.D., like a resurfacing after years spent at the bottom of the ocean, I emerged into a world that was ripe for the practical application of these techniques to shed insights into very real engineering problems. I therefore began to consciously downplay the mystical elements of science that I had so much enjoyed indulging in as a teenager and student and became a marketer of the quantum techniques to my colleagues (*okay this is just called being a PI-growing up and having to write proposals). The models could be very accurate, very rigorous, and very powerful but also very expensive and prone to sensitivities to the ways in which the models were constructed. I began to grapple with those practical elements of the approach, to see how well the models could scale up and provide useful answers to assist process and materials engineers in the Real World™. For a while, my imagination was on hold while I got busy trying to turn what was a passion and an education into a career. I forgot about Doctor Who for a while. Sad to say.

As work piled up I realized I needed to hire some postdocs and grad students in order to keep up. At first, it just seemed like something I had to do. But, once the students arrived, I began to experience something new, something unexpected: It’s fun to mentor! The thrill of being the Doctor began to come back. Just like The Doctor needed to have tagalongs to whom to explain things, to question what he was doing, and to provide still unformed minds to shape and help mature, so too does the PI with his entourage of students, postdocs and interns.

The Doctor wouldn’t be The Doctor if he didn’t have his companions.

And sure, sometimes they rubbed him the wrong way or didn’t get along, but the point was, they were in the adventure together. Doctor Who is a communal thing. And so is science.

Nowadays my favorite thing about my career trajectory is the opportunity for mentorship: unlocking the Tardis and bringing a couple companions along for the ride. Science is a journey of discovery, and, just like the great American/intergalactic road trip, it’s more fun when you do it together.