I am a cytogeneticist. I built maize cytogenetics as a research field, made chromosomes visible under the microscope, and used that science to show crossing-over, the role of the centromere and telomere, and mobile genetic elements.
The person outside the work — what they're learning and tinkering with.
After retiring from the Carnegie Institution in 1967 I kept working with graduate students and colleagues at Cold Spring Harbor, and gave talks on mobile genetic elements and the history of genetics research for junior scientists.
My first genetics course in 1921 and an invitation from C. B. Hutchison into the graduate course in 1922 turned a botany student into a geneticist; I said so in my own words.
