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I have been a scientist for more than 40 years, having studied at Cambridge and Harvard. I researched and taught at Cambridge University, was a research fellow of the Royal Society, and have more than 80 publications in peer-reviewed journals. I am strongly pro-science.

I'm an academic. I teach at the university, and that's where I will go back to.

I very much enjoyed my career in science. I didn't leave science because I was disillusioned, but felt I'd done my bit for it after about twenty-five years.

However, I should perhaps add that during the 20 years I have been back in Cambridge, I have been actively involved in the teaching of undergraduates, as well as of course supervising research students.

I am a professor at Stanford; I am a happy professor at Stanford. That's where I'm staying.

My doctoral work was completed by the end of 1950 and, at the age of twenty-two, I joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an instructor in chemistry under the distinguished chemists Roger Adams and Carl S. Marvel.

I was promoted associate professor in early 1970 and full professor in October of the same year. I spent the two spring semesters of 1972 and 1974 as visiting professor at Harvard University, giving lectures and directing a research project.

My history is pretty different from the history of most professors. I was a high school dropout. I dropped out and became a science fiction writer.

I finished my Ph.D. at Berkeley in November 1987 and took a position as an independent fellow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in January 1988.

I remained associated with the Technische Universitat Munchen, where I became Professor in 1976.