Rockstar professors

Everywhere you go at Hopkins, large paintings depicting former and current professors dress the walls. While it kind of reminds me of Harry Potter (waiting for the motives to move around witihin the frames) it's also a reminder of the H.U.G.E status that professors can achive in academica. And the amazing work that's been carried out.

On of our upcoming guest lectures is D.A Henderson (the guy that eradicated smallpox, inspiring the elimination of other diseases - yes, very very cool). We have been encouraged to buy his book and then stand in line to have him sign it. The queuing is quite a frequent phenomena after a lecture when 268 people (small, comfortable class size) try to either get out of the hall or get a few minutes with the professor - like a crowd approaching rockstars who just performed a concert. Most of the lectures are amazing so in a way, it makes sense.

D. A. Henderson back in the days, busy eliminating one of the largest public health issues in history.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/magazine/issues/spring08/articles/spring08pg14-15.html

The other day we had a professor who made two statements:
1) He has no visual memory and therefore cannot remember or associate faces with people
2) He doesn't understand "accents" = no one unless they speak perfectly clear US English.

So, if I go up to him the chance that he's gonna understand what I'm saying is about 6,7845 %.  And even if he does, he won't reconize whom he just spoke to.

There are countless challenges with gradstudies.