Zafra Lerman: ‘I used art, music, dance, drama, poetry, animation, anything’
The influential science diplomat on teaching chemistry through the arts and doing almost impossible things
I knew I’d be a scientist from the age of two. Nobody could answer any of my questions. I‘d pose in the mirror and ask, ‘What am I doing there?’ I didn’t know the word scientist, but I knew that I would like to know more about things like that.
I researched secondary isotope effects. One of my discoveries on a temperature dependence of secondary isotope effects started other people working on it. But the world started getting more and more complicated and I thought I could do more good by teaching minorities that would never take science, teaching non-science majors so they would be able to understand scientific articles that appeared in the daily newspaper.
Mike Alexandroff had a vision for a university that would have open admission, so that people in difficult economic situations could have higher education. When he took over Columbia College in Chicago in the 1960s they did not have any science because the people there were very progressive. They said science caused all the problems, why should we teach such a horrible subject? But he wanted somebody that is a good scientist, a good teacher, involved in disarmament and arms control and human rights. My name came up everywhere, and he gave me a completely free hand to do what I wanted, how I wanted.