NGEE Arctic Scientist Writes about Career, Mentoring, and the Value of Good Colleagues

Stan Wullschleger has spent more than 25 years pursuing globally important, and scientifically interesting, questions in a creative and team-oriented environment. In an interview with editors of the New Phytologist, an international plant science journal, Stan describes how scientific discovery has always been the primary motivating factor in his life as a scientist. Asking a new question, answering an old question in a new way, or simply seeing something that others do not has always been enough to get Stan out of bed in the morning. Those moments of inspiration when working on a particularly difficult question can be as vivid today as they were in the very moment of designing a new experiment and applying a new technique to a question of interest. Stan admits that there has long been a sense of excitement and satisfaction in conducting research, but that increasingly it is rewarding to also see others be successful. Collaboration is one of Stan’s core values – along with productivity, creativity, and celebrating success – and increasingly, his motivation is found in working with and helping others experience the same satisfaction in their careers. According to the interview, this has required a change in mind-set that has slowly emerged over the past decade. Stan’s career has been, and continues to be, amazing and his hope is that it can be for others as well. Helping people achieve their goals is important, as is the motivation to create new opportunities and vision for the plant sciences. Reference: Wullschleger SD 2017. Scientist Profile, Stan D. Wullschleger. New Phytologist 216: 981-983. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/nph.14869