Meet: Max Bernstein

What I do (asked in 1996)
I am a post-doc, and I got this job by answering an ad in the trade journal Chemical & Engineering News. I was at the time just graduating from Cornell with a PhD in Chemistry and the ad looked cool, but it was very different from anything I had done before. I suppose it was the fact that my graduate work had combined organic chemistry with lots of spectroscopy that made me seem prepared for this job. This job, by the way, is to make interstellar and cometary ice analogs in the lab, exposing them to UV at low T (~10 K = -260 C) and finding out what organic molecules are formed.

Why I do what I do
I chose to enter chemistry, and to go on to graduate school, and to take this position all because it seemed like I would enjoy it. In the case of graduate school especially, I don't think that one should contemplate it unless you really like the field. I'm sure not in it for the money!

Personal
In high school I played chess and Dungeons & Dragons. My sister is a medical doctor who does genetics and got her undergraduate degree in chemistry at the University of Chicago (I went to McGill, in Montreal). My parents are really more into literature and are amazed that both their kids have gone tech.