I'm still recovering from an SI joint injury that slowed me down in the last 3 weeks. I couldn't move for 2 days. Luckily, acupuncture gave me enough mobility to fly to Boston for a celebration of the science and mentorship of Professor Naomi Pierce of Harvard University. I met Nomi when I was a grad student at Oxford. She was a post-doc. Along with people like Judy Myers, Trudy Watt, Bob Jefferies, Jack Dainty, Robin McCleery, John Krebs, Bill Hamilton and Keith Kirby, Nomi became one of my mentors. Not only did she discuss my research and its broader context with me, but she suggested some of its best experimental design ideas. She also lent me clothes to wear to post-doc interviews!

As I suggested in my interview with People Behind the Science's Dr. Marie McNeely, everyone should "get as many mentors as possible". I took my own advice. Thirty years later, remarkably, I'm still in touch more or less frequently with those mentors (excepting those that have died).

Since I still can't work comfortably (2-3 more weeks to full mobility), I'm saving time on this post by having a storify do double duty. I whipped up the following storify in about an hour from the event tweets.