Paul Wennberg, Director of the Linde Center for Global Environmental Science at the California Institute of Technology, grew up in a small agricultural community in Vermont. He visited Zócalo two days before Halloween, and noted that in his hometown, “Halloween was walking to the five houses that you could walk to.” In Los Angeles, he said, “it’s certainly a lot more fun for the kids.” Read more about Wennberg below.
Q. What is your favorite word?
A. Action.
Q. What inspires you?
A. Music and curiosity.
Q. What is your favorite way to procrastinate?
A. The web.
Q. If you could live in any time – past, present, or future – when would it be?
A. It’s hard to know about the future isn’t it? It’s like that Yogi Berra quote. I think I’d like to live today. This is a tremendously fascinating time. Science is exploding, and we certainly don’t know what the future is, so I’d say, it’s a pretty good time right now.
Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?
A. Design and architecture.
Q. What is your fondest childhood memory?
A. Working on the farm.
Q. What is your most prized material possession?
A. I don’t have any, unless you include family.
Q. What teacher or professor changed your life?
A. It’s amazing how many little junctures you go through in life, and how chance and other interactions make such a big difference. I had a chemistry professor at Oberlin College who was really remarkable, and got me interested in environmental chemistry. My math teacher in high school told me about Oberlin. And a professor at Colorado, where I was going to go to grad school, told me he wouldn’t work with me, so I ended up at Harvard. There are all these funny chance things, aren’t there?
To read about Wennberg’s panel on climate change in Los Angeles, click here.
*Photo by Aaron Salcido.