Working Scientist

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How jazz boosts my creativity in physics

May 29, 2026

Theoretical physicist Stephon Alexander was 12 years old when his father bought him a saxophone at a garage sale near their home in the Bronx, New York. Soon after he heard Ornette Coleman, a pioneer of free jazz, on the radio. “There was this saxophone playing that was completely out there, completely wild,” he recalls. “You could just play whatever you want and make up whatever you want.” Alexander, a jazz saxophonist who now directs the Brown University Center for Theoretical Physics ...

Hit a lab project glitch? Thinking about your thesis title like a storyteller can help you focus

May 22, 2026

Frances Brodsky believes that writing her three mystery novels set in the world of bench science has improved her scientific writing. “I love making up titles for my books and chapters,” she says. “One of the best ways to train someone in the lab to focus on their project is for them to come up with the title of a paper that they want to write. That tells them where they're going. Also, when I interview people, I ask them: ‘What is the title of the thesis you plan to write?’​​​​​​​”Brodsky, a...

Running a farm, pursuing a research career: what’s the difference?

May 15, 2026

Brandon Brown “fell into farming” after tiring of city life during the COVID-19 pandemic and now tends more than 150 fruit trees alongside his research into HIV and public health ethics at the University of California, Riverside School of Medicine. “I had to look at farming the same way that I look at my academic career, and to take it one day at a time with my eyes towards a goal,” he says.Brown says it took him a while for the realization to dawn. “My PhD taught me that the work is never do...