Mario Molina Interview (page: 5 / 8) Nobel Prize in Chemistry	Print Interview

What did you think about when you made these discoveries as a child, when you looked through the microscope for the first time?

Mario Molina: For me, it was just a thrill. I just remember thinking at that time, this is the sort of thing I would like to do, if I could. I did not come from a family of scientists. My father was a lawyer, my older brother was a lawyer. So for me, that was a world that I did not know about. Just to realize that there were people out there in the world that were doing this all the time, as a profession, was something that I couldn't believe as a child.

What did your parents think of you pursuing this career?

Mario Molina: Well, they certainly supported very much my career, in spite of not having a scientific tradition. Furthermore in Mexico -- in Latin America, perhaps -- the science tradition is not as well established as it might be in either Europe or the United States, so it's not as common for children to become interested in this topic. I managed somehow or other to have friends just like everybody else, but for this hobby, for these activities, I was sort of on my own. It was not something I was sharing with other friends, but I certainly had support from family and teachers and so on.

Looking back, is there a moment you see as the first big break in your career?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Mario Molina: For me, moving from Europe to the United States was a very important step. I had gone through college in Mexico in an engineering field, but what I really wanted to do was scientific research. The reason I did that in Mexico is that I did my mathematics, physics, and for me that was the way to combine these, combine my scientific curiosity with mathematics and with chemistry at that time. But later, I realized I really had to switch to chemistry as a science. So coming to the United States, doing a Ph.D. in chemistry in Berkeley, it was at the beginning a difficult thing for me to do. I really had to sort of learn much of basic science that I had not learned earlier on, but I was able to do that with some hard work. Eventually, I saw that I could actually master all these subjects, get very good grades, and indeed start doing new research. We started finding out new ways in which molecules function, new ways in which chemical reactions take place. And again, that was really the sort of thing I was looking forward to work with since I was a child.

[ Key to Success ] Preparation

You left Mexico and traveled extensively to pursue higher learning. Do you think it's important for students to leave their home countries, as you did, and travel through Europe and the United States?

Mario Molina: I think it's very important to take advantage of the fact that the scientific community is really international. It's very open. Certainly for environmental issues, this is the case, where information is freely exchanged. That's why it's important to communicate with the rest of the world. That's why it's important for students at some stage to go to different universities. It's best perhaps if the excellent students are the ones that have opportunity to go abroad. The hope is that they go back and benefit their own countries. But in the end, much of the science that we do, because it's international, we do it as a large group. There's another important aspect that there's some local problems for which you need a local perspective. And you need this combination of having access to the best there is in science, with the realization of what your local problems are, your local perspective. That's what one needs to solve a variety of problems.

Could you tell us a bit about your studies in this country and in Europe?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Mario Molina: When I first went to Europe after finishing my college degree in chemical engineering, I went to Germany. At that time I was in transition between engineering and science. I was studying polymerization kinetics, something to do with plastics, not with the atmosphere. But I realized that it was going to be easier or better for me to come to the United States, because the graduate system was -- it's easier here to start again. And I felt I really had to, to become a scientist, to have the opportunity to take more courses, to take a little bit more time. It was really a definition time for me, again, a career of science. I spent some time in France before I came to the United States, mostly studying on my own. It was an important time for me. Not so much because of the science. I had a wonderful group of friends, and we discussed all sorts of problems facing society. Politics and what have you. Perhaps it's those years that formed me in terms of social responsibility, if you want. So it's important to have an overall view of the world as well. And then eventually, of course, getting a Ph.D. in Berkeley was pretty time consuming. I had to work very hard. But at the same time, those were very interesting times. A student movement, of course, was very much alive at that time. People's Park in Berkeley was a big issue, so I could see around me all these changes that were going on in society. So this opportunity I had to live in many different places, I think, turned out to be important in terms of having a perspective of these big problems that society faces.

Do you think all this traveling gave you a global perspective on the great problem that you ultimately solved?

Mario Molina: That's right. I now have the notion that it's very important for this communication -- not just between scientists, but in many different sectors of society -- this globalization. It's very important. These problems that we have, have to be tackled not just by one country, or by one group of people, but they have to be tackled by everybody together. So this internationalization of science is an essential aspect of the field.

How did you manage the language difficulties, studying abroad?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Mario Molina: I remember, of course, I had great difficulties when I first went to Germany. German's a difficult language, and just knowing Spanish was not particularly helpful, so I actually spent quite a bit of time with the language. I eventually became very proud of being able to participate even in discussions about politics with my German friends. Then eventually, I spent some time in France. French was a lot easier. In fact, I remember also in Germany that the first language I learned was Italian, because it was so much easier for me, and I have some Italian friends, although I forgot most of it now. So by the time I came to the United States, of course I knew English only from high school, and from text books, but I certainly couldn't speak it. But I didn't devote nearly as much energy learning English as I did learning German. I guess I was lazy after that much time with the other languages! But it was so much easier, I guess. So I still regret not having spent more time, in first becoming a graduate student in the United States, with the language itself. But it was so time-consuming to keep up with the science that I just picked up whatever came in terms of the language.

[ Key to Success ] Perseverance

What advice do you give your students about language acquisition and its role in science?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Mario Molina: What has happened is that English has become, as a matter of fact, the international language of science. So it's really essential for scientists all over the world to master English as a language. It used to be the case, perhaps earlier in the century, that German or French were the languages that one had to know about, but that certainly has changed, and even language examinations here in the United States are no longer required to obtain a Ph.D. In some sense, I believe something has been lost here in the U.S. by not learning other languages, because one really needs to know how other cultures function, and the language is an important part of that. But certainly to scientists abroad, a very important piece of advice is to learn not just to read English, but to actually communicate very well, because that's essential for this internationalization of science that we were talking about before.

Mario Molina Interview, Page: 1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8