What interests me most about science is pursuing the big “Why?”. My first independent science project was “Why do mussels have maternal and paternal inheritance of mitochondria?”, which is crazy cool because they’re the only animals that do that. They also make a very tasty research subject. Chasing that “Why?” led me to complete a PhD on why folate deficiency causes colon cancer and 8 fascinating years as a post-doc asking why stem cells behave the way they do in development and disease. I made a very successful academic career in “Why?”, but I got hooked on another question: “How?”. STEMCELL Technologies took me on and asked me to find out how to generate neural cell cultures that represent what goes on inside the human nervous system. “How?” is a powerful question that lets me dig deep into the roots of animal development. It also challenges me to figure out how we can apply this knowledge to make tools that everyone can use to improve the science we do every day. This is what I love about what I do, I help make science easier, more reproducible and I get to tackle fun and interesting problems doing it!What I value in science is openness, collaboration and equality. My posts will reflect advances in neuroscience, the stem cell industry and opportunities for networking and education. I’d love to hear from you about what you are working on, your successes and challenges. I’ll highlight work from those who are not well represented and look for ways we can all work together on the “Hows and Whys?”.