I'm Alan Alder and this is Clear and Vivid, conversations about connecting and communicating.

I sometimes tell my students, my science students that it's not difficult for me to imagine

my life without science, even though I've invested a lot of it in science so far, but it's

not possible for me to imagine my life without music because that's been there from the

beginning. When I sing, I'm calling on a whole different suite of faculties and stimuli

and skills and attentions that I don't often deploy in my science and vice versa.

And so by doing one, I get a break and I get a rest and recovery from the other one,

and that really motivates me and keeps me going to keep them both in my life.

Jessica Sandra X. DeVore, one of the most remarkable people I've talked to on Clear and Vivid.

She did distinguish Professor of Biology at Harvard where she's made striking discoveries

in how genes make the cells needed for sexual reproduction. She's African-American, which

is still an unconscionable rarity in the upper echelons of science. And even more rare,

she's also a professional singer with a gorgeous soprano voice that we'll be hearing later.

This is so great to have you on because your work is fascinating and your fascinating

is a person, I think, because you're not only a top scientist. You're also in the arts

and not just as someone who loves music, but as a professional. I think it's amazing.

It's an example of what we're capable of if we're able to follow our own path, you know,

and not everybody follows the path that interests them. What about the science part?

Do you have a moment where you said, oh, this is for me that it's gradually developed?

When were you aware that you were going to be a scientist?

I became interested in science as a teenager without really understanding that what I was

becoming interested in was science. What did you think it was?

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