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If you can remember, was there any specific event or experience that triggered your interest in science? or maybe some person that inspired you?

For me, I was not that interested in science as a young person, though I did like math. But I was interested in knowledge generally and tried to keep abreast of important developments. As an adult I quickly realized how important science was to our world.

There wasn't any specific event that motivated me, although the Moon Landing did have a huge impact. I just gradually became more interested in scientific topics.

I knew I would never practice science -- I don't have either the knowledge or the personality for it -- but I wanted to keep up with developments as well as I could. So when I joined ÀÏ»¢»úÎÈÓ®·½·¨, this was one of the first groups I joined.

Great question, Betsy!

I was fascinated by space and space exploration as a kid in the 90s. I remember lots of trips to the local planetariums, spending hours staring at the night sky with a telescope (though I never successfully saw much), and dreaming about being an astronaut. In high school I loved biology and chemistry (not so much physics or calculus) and knew I would be either a biochemistry or a chemistry major in college. My initial plan was to pursue a PhD and a basic science research career, but once I got to college, I realized having an MD would be a lot more versatile, so I pursued a combined MD/PhD afterwards (with the added bonus of not having to take out medical school loans). I've always been curious and driven more toward quantitative fields than qualitative ones, so my medical specialty is definitely more quantitative.

For me it was curiosity, for sure. Hiking with my father, picking up unusual looking rocks and talking about them without the later acquired vocabulary. Then a grade school field trip underground into an inactive gypsum mine further sparked my curiosity. And all the news, at the time, about groundwater pollution such as at the Love Canal near Niagara Falls started my interest in aquifers and hydrogeology. Seems, to me, not learning about geology and the Earth we walk on everyday is a form of extreme lack of curiosity. All the effort that's gone into developing the geologic time scale and the making of geologic maps planet-wide is truly remarkable. Reading geologic formations as chapters of a gigantic history book takes time. Maybe multiple lifetimes. And the place to start is looking into the dirt, unconsolidated sediments, and rock layers beneath the chair you are sitting on now. The facts and narratives are readily available.

It was my father who planted the seed. He was a medical doctor, and he helped me develop book reports and demonstrations about science, when I was in elementary school. I remember one day he came home with a bunch of small paperback books about astronomy. That really sealed the deal. My parents and aunts took me to a number of museums and planetariums. I became addicted to science.

In undergraduate school I majored in astronomy (and physics). Then in graduate school I studied meteorology. Then in my job, I concentrated in oceanography. You could say that it has been downhill all the way!

In my youth, my best school friend was a very creative person. And we both were top winners of local mathematical olympiads. It was implicit for us to go to the top Universities in the country; he went into the top one, and I went into one in the top ten. I graduated in physics and, for many years, worked in scientific institutions.
Upon emigration to the USA when I was 52, my wife and I had just over 10 years to earn our place in society, buy a home, and get enough money for retirement. That prompted me to set science aside and go into the software industry.
After retirement, at 75, I was free to return to science. I got into the complex system theory field, published several articles in the Complex systems journal, and wrote two books for the general public from a complex systems perspective about finding the trajectory in which humankind was moving during the last 44 thousand years.