Hi Heather! I think several people inspired me to be a scientist. First of all my parents, who always encouraged me to ask lots of questions (which is really what being a scientist is all about!) In terms of historical scientists, Marie Curie made a big impression on me -- in a time when essentially all "public" scientists were men, she ignored convention and changed the world in the process. (I say "public" scientists, because I think as long as there have been women there have been those who employed the scientific method of forming a hypothesis, testing it with observations/experiments, and learning something fundamental about the world around them. The difference is they didn't usually publish their results). Another person who inspired me was my high school physics teacher, who encouraged me scientifically, and also made sure I thought about the ethical issues that go along with science: what we do is not a pure intellectual exercise, but something that impacts the world around us. Finally, I continue to be inspired by the surprises the universe continuously throws at us -- observable extra-solar planets, massive eruptions from the Sun, the incredible complexity of life, just to name a few. cheers, Sarah

I got an inspiration from a father-daughter astronomy class at the Oklahoma City Planetarium. I always enjoyed nature and the sky. I also was influenced by "the Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays" - an animated movie on space research. You can still get a DVD of that from Amazon! (it and others were done by Frank Capra, who produced "It's a wonderful life"!) Finally, Apollo 13 inspired me with its "can do" saving of the crew. I went on to analyze Apollo 14 data for my PhD! You can read more about the things that influenced my life and career in an essay "Three Heavens - Our Home" I wrote for a book. You can get to it from my web page http://space.rice.edu/~reiff/.