My first summer job out of college changed my career path from medicine to biology research--I cloned and characterized one of the first K+ channels in mammals. I also worked with Roy Britten, the discoverer of "junk DNA," on retrotransposons in marine invertebrates and published a paper with him. Since then I have completed my PhD from New York University and contributed to the field of neuroscience with a long history of high-impact publications in ion channels and neurotransmitter receptors, as well as genomics and structural biology. My interest in teaching grew when I got a position lecturing in physiology, neuroscience and cell biology at the medical school level, in the Caribbean, because the experience gave me a broader understanding of biology, and the medical relevance of my research, in contrast to very specific "projects" I had embarked on in research.