Nobel Glow, March 2004

I was at the NYU Child Study Center today getting ready to give my monthly talk on Getting a Good Start which is an hour and a half for new parents to learn about their babies, when Susan Schwartz, a wonderful director of the learning disabilities group, asked me whether Rob was glowing. She said that Eric Kandel, a 2000 Nobel winner in Medicine and a member of her Temple, is still glowing. Well, yes, in fact. We are both still glowing. I think our mothers are too and our friends and, I think, our children when they stop to think about their parental units. We are still amazed by this wonderful acknowledgement.
On March 12, NYU put on a fabulous black tie gala for 400 in Rob's honor at the stately, incredibly beautiful NY Public Library. It was so very elegant and lovely and remniscent of Stockholm. Many of Rob's students came from all around the globe. The farthest travelled from Brazil and Denmark. It was such a pleasure for us to see so many of them and they enjoyed chatting with each other. One of Rob's Taiwanese students said that in Chinese academic tradition, they are all "brothers and sisters" since Rob is like their "father". Such a lovely thought.
When Rob got up to speak at the Gala, everyone stood and gave him an ovation. It was a humbling and touching moment for both of us. Rob gave a speech that was full of gratitude and humor. In Letterman style, he listed 10 reasons why it's good to win the Nobel Prize...I'm not at liberty to publish them yet but I can say that number 10 was "Your mother gets her picture in the local newspaper!" The speech was capped off with Rob's first two graduate students from UCSD, Mark Watson and Dennis Kraft, bringing up the duplicate Nobel medal so that Rob could present it to our old friend Tom Cooley, Dean of NYU's Stern School of Business. Our good friends, Leonard and Allison Stern were there too. It was a touching time.
Every week has brought it's Nobellian pleasures. Last week, the article that Michael Barr wrote (below) appeared in a larger article on OTBN in the Wall Street Journal.
Next week?