From the Bookshelf of Science and Inquiry…

Lab Girl

Hope Jahren

Start date: June 1, 2017

Finish date: June 30, 2017

Discussion: Book Club 2017

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Book Club 2017

May 2017 - Hidden Life of Trees
By Betsy , co-mod · 25 posts · 174 views

last updated Nov 17, 2022 06:26AM

April 2017 - Reality is Not What It Seems
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last updated Mar 18, 2021 04:12PM

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Aug 21, 2016 aPriL does feral sometimes rated it really liked it

Shelves: autobiography, memoir, science, academic-notations

Hope Jahren is a scientist of geobiology. She has received three Fulbright Awards and she is the only woman to receive two Young Investigator Medals. Currently, she is a tenured professor at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa in Honolulu. In my opinion, she also is able to write with intensity and verve like a literature major. But she doesn't need to make fictional stuff up. Her childhood, her education and her adventures in building three labs in different universities while pursuing original Hope Jahren is a scientist of geobiology. She has received three Fulbright Awards and she is the only woman to receive two Young Investigator Medals. Currently, she is a tenured professor at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa in Honolulu. In my opinion, she also is able to write with intensity and verve like a literature major. But she doesn't need to make fictional stuff up. Her childhood, her education and her adventures in building three labs in different universities while pursuing original research about trees and soils is fascinating. She does not go into a year-by-year account, but she gives us readers brief vignettes from which it is clear what her life was about - science, friends, institutional roadblocks, fieldwork and coming of age while directing students older than her. Fortunately, she meets an idiosyncratic student who becomes her partner in science for the rest of her professional life. She was lucky to meet Bill, but I think Bill was lucky to meet Hope, too. They both have science obsessions that are as powerful as their talent.

Jahren had an interesting childhood in Minnesota where she was in the woods exploring when she wasn't in her father's science labs at a community college where he taught introductory physics and earth science. Her mother was a terrific gardener who taught Jahren to do things correctly no matter how many tries it took. Unfortunately for Hope's mother, universities of 1951 did not believe women could be scientists, so Hope's mother quit her studies of chemistry and went back home to marry Hope's father. She was an angry woman, but her aborted career is probably why Hope had so much persevering drive in her mulish insistence to be accepted in her chosen field of work despite often being the only woman in the room and mostly ignored or demeaned by university men.

Recognition for her work slowly comes, and interesting work it is! Hope alternates telling how a scientist becomes an institutional scientist between explaining in laymen's terms how plants work - leaves, roots, flowers, seeds and communication. She travels to the Arctic to Ireland to Norway to Hawai'i for her work, getting married and having a baby between journeys.

This is quick read if you push through the book, but gentle reader, don't. If you take the time to enjoy the odd branches into which Jahren's life sprouts, her life will grow on you. ...more

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Aug 09, 2016 Mark rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction-science, biography

Many people who are good scientists. Many people who are good writers. Rarely does one find someone who excels at both. The ability to present difficult scientific concepts in a way that can be grasped by the non-scientist requires deep understanding and clear ability to express ideas. Hope Jahren thrives as a scientist as evidenced by her awards and publications that she has amassed in her career as a geobiology researcher. Her writing skills are revealed by this book.

She tells her story from Many people who are good scientists. Many people who are good writers. Rarely does one find someone who excels at both. The ability to present difficult scientific concepts in a way that can be grasped by the non-scientist requires deep understanding and clear ability to express ideas. Hope Jahren thrives as a scientist as evidenced by her awards and publications that she has amassed in her career as a geobiology researcher. Her writing skills are revealed by this book.

She tells her story from the time she played in her father's physics teaching laboratory, to her studies in undergraduate and graduate school, her rocky start as a new professor, and through her first twenty years as a independent research scientist. Her travels take her all over the world (Alaska, Norway, Ireland, etc.) to study her beloved plants, mostly trees. She intersperses her narrative with short chapters that clearly describe the how plants grow, defend themselves, make food, and reproduce. Her description of her ecstasy one night in the lab when she has discovered something new that only she knows mirrors my experience in chemistry and illustrates what Richard Feynman called "the pleasure of finding things out". She does not omit the setbacks and mistakes she made as a young researcher. All of this is written in a passionate, poetic style that is a pleasure to read and entertainingly informative.

My description may lead you to believe this is a routine story, but the what distinguishes the book are the many layers of meaning and rich detail. I put forth just a few examples. She is bipolar. Her description of a manic episode and the subsequent crash helped me to understand in vivid detail how it feels to have this disorder. She tells in parallel to her scientific development the story of her friendship and partnership with her lab supervisor, Bill. Bill has many issues in his personal life, but expertly maintains the research lab. He shares all the highs and lows and changes throughout her scientific journey. She describes the casual and endemic sexism that women academics, especially in the sciences, must live with every day.

Read this book. You will learn some science. You will learn come to admire a scientist. You will fall in love with her prose. ...more

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Aug 17, 2018 Ka rated it liked it

Shelves: memoirs

Hope Jahren's memoir alternates chapters, between descriptions of her struggle to be taken seriously and rise in the world of academic science, and descriptions of her activities as a geobiologist -- the secret life of trees, for example. Both make interesting stories, and both aspects of the memoir are enlivened by her charming description of her long-time lab assistant Bill and their (non-romantic) relationship over the years. "Like 12-year-old fraternal twins" they communicate with few words ...more

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Mar 05, 2018 Patricia rated it it was amazing

Excelente autobiografía. Me encantó la manera en que relata su biografía y la analogía que utiliza con las plantas para describir su vida personal y científica. Maravilloso

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Mar 28, 2017 Deanna rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science

Wow! This book was well-written, funny and informative. Just excellent. I loved it! Reading Lab Girl reignited my interest in science. It was fascinating to peer into the life of a PhD scientist and what challenges a woman faces in the field. The way the chapters alternate between ecology/biology of trees, plants and the environment and her increasingly fascinating life story sucked me in and kept me looking forward to each new chapter. The book does not pressure the reader to become a conservat ...more

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