If I look back over my life, whatever success I have
is directly due to three or four different people along the way.
Having an individual impact on an individual life-- that's
what means so much to me.
We're able to gain from him what he's gained from others.
I think that will trickle down to everyone else
that we come in contact with.
Dean is kind of a huge figure, I think, in our lives.
He's a big guy in the chemistry department,
but he'll give you one on one time for hours.
I'm the chair of the Department of Chemistry.
But in addition to my administrative duties,
I have my teaching responsibilities,
and I have my responsibilities to my grad students
and our research group.
The Harman Research Group is a group
of five to six graduate students that are working
towards their PhD in chemistry.
We focus on organic synthesis as directed
toward pharmaceutical design.
The goal of a PhD program is the research.
But there's another huge piece, which
is the development of the student, the development
of those relationships and that trust that's built.
Because you can get a whole lot more done if you're
working as a team than if you have individuals
that feel that they're competing against each other.
We make sure to spend time outside of the lab,
where we can just socialize.
When you're in those situations, where
you're playing basketball, it sets up the basic relationship
of trust.
It helps us see each other in a different light,
and that kind of makes it easier to go back into lab
and really join up as a team there as well.
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I don't think I'd say that Dean has improved my experience.
I think he's made my experience at UVA, because
of the lifestyle that he has created for the students who
get to join his lab.
He shows us how to behave as chemists, as scientists.
He gave me the ability to really critically think for myself,
something that I honestly believe will help me forever.
When they come into the lab, I don't say, OK, here's
your project.
Your goal is to do this, and then you graduate.
I can't think that way.
I come in and say, your goal is to come and be a scientist.
You're going to learn how to be a scientist.
You're going to explore.
And that's a strange thing for them at first.
"But you're just telling me just go with my curiosity."
Exactly.
I want you to go into lab and follow your curiosity.
That's how you're going to find the next big thing.
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