my own group is extremely important to
me, I have realized that I have experi-
ence that enables me to do more for
the scientific community. Lately, my
career has shifted somewhat from build-
ing a personal reputation towards
accepting the responsibility of leader-
ship within our field. But leadership
does not occur in isolation. We all
lead and follow within a group, hope-
fully as a team. In his essay,Traditionand Individual Talent, the poet T. S.
Eliot says that no artist has his complete
meaning alone. I would expand that
thought to include today’s scientist,
who also cannot have his or her com-
plete meaning alone. It is the
American context, which at its best,
celebrates diversity, the acceptance of
new ideas and the ever present possi-
bility to start again and create a wonder-
ful life.LIFE BOX 4.2. DEBORAH DELMERDeborah Delmer, Professor Emeritus UC Davis; Rockefeller Foundation
(retired); Winner of the ACS Anselme Payen Award; Member of the
National Academy of SciencesDeborah DelmerI must confess that there was something
rather haphazard in the path I took to
become a serious scientist. A major
positive influence was my father—asmall-town country doctor in Indiana,
who had a passion for his work that cer-
tainly impressed me. Ours was a family
in which Mom and my brother had a
very close alliance, while the same was
true for me and my father. And so I
suppose it was natural that he hoped
very much that I would follow in his
path—which meant enrolling at Indiana
University and pursuing a career in
medicine. I personally also found this
attractive but my boyfriend had other
ideas—that I should study rather to be
a nurse—a career that should be more
suitable for what he hoped would be
my main calling in life—his wife and
mother to his children. As it turned
out, I pleased neither of them. During
my first week at Indiana University, I
hoped to still my own confusion by
talks with faculty at orientation day. I
started in alphabetical order and, within
half an hour, had signed up for anthro-
pology as a major. But then I wandered
on to “B” and there was this handsome
young Professor who had a crowd of
students enthralled by his passionate
advocacy of the field of bacteriology.
I joined the crowd and asked him,108 PLANT DEVELOPMENT AND PHYSIOLOGY