A random (mostly) uphill walk

I have been accused of being a chemist, although usually not by chemists. My first foray into chemistry as a mechanical and aerospace engineering student at Princeton was neither inspiring nor memorable, and my success in that field was on par with my interest. That changed, however, 7 years later, when I took organic chemistry for the first time as a graduate student in chemical engineering at UC Berkeley. Perhaps I was simply more mature, but I think it was because I was more open minded, having spent the intervening years stretching and exercising my brain by living and working in different countries. In the decades since, the puzzles, and the art, of chemistry have been endlessly fascinating, as has the stunning artistry of the biological world, truly the best chemist of all. The living world is also the finest engineer: nature’s design process of evolution has created all the