Nicole Nelson just arrived in Madison as the newest assistant professor in UW-Madison's Department of the History of Science, but she's already gotten the lowdown on the city.
Years ago, Nelson's father held a postdoctoral research post at UW-Madison. Her mother still raves about the sandalwood soap from The Soap Opera on State Street and grumbles about their tiny apartment on Lake Mendota, where "you couldn't open the fridge door and the oven door at the same time," Nelson says.
Nelson, whose research focuses on the history of recent biology (in particular, genetics), comes to campus after serving as a postdoctoral research fellow at McGill University in Montreal since 2011. We asked her about her plans for the semester, her secret talents and more.
Nelson
Q: You went to school at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario and Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, worked in Montreal and now you're in Madison. Do you really like winter?
A: It's not that I try to move to cold places, but winter seems to follow me wherever I go! Maybe it's my destiny as a Canadian. My partner jokes that someday we'll have to retire to Florida to make up for my career taking us to ever colder places.
Q: Tell us more about your research.
A: There are many behaviors or diseases that we think of today as having a genetic component, and I investigate how those genetic explanations are produced, circulated, and change over time. I'm especially interested in how the day-to-day experience of doing science impacts how scientists themselves think about the genetic and environmental causes of diseases.
Q: Why are you most excited to be at UW-Madison?
A: I'm looking forward to great opportunities for collaboration at UW-Madison. Even before arriving on campus, I was already getting emails from new colleagues about co-teaching courses, working together on grants, and so on. The Institute for Biology Education was especially helpful in getting my new introductory Biology and Society course off the ground for the spring semester.
Q: What can students expect in the classroom?
A: In my classes, I'm aiming to get students to think about science in a new light. For science students, that may mean stepping back from the kinds of lessons they're learning in other classes to think about social context of their work; and for humanities students, it could be learning to see science as something that contributes to our culture and understandings of ourselves in the same way that art and literature do.
Q: What courses will you teach?
A: I'll be teaching Biology and Society, 1950 to Present; and 20th Century Genetics: From Eugenics to Epigenetics.
Q: What do you like to do outside of work?
A: I'd say I like to make things. You name it, I've probably tried to make it – canning jam, blowing glass, upholstering a couch, sewing a quilt, and so on. Doing something with my hands is a nice antidote to the reading and writing that I do all day as an academic, and I love figuring out how something is put together and learning the new skills needed to bring it to life.
To meet more new faculty members, see our full list of Q&As from the 2013-14 school year.