Women in the Sciences

Using Both Sides of the Brain

. . . one Saturday night, between two performances of Shakespeare's "Richard III," Sara had to rush over to her lab to rinse lobster brains. Six of her acting colleagues invited themselves along. In partial stage dress, they gathered around a microscope, examined the brain tissue and expressed wonder and fascination in her research.

Sara '02 has always been an independent thinker and risk taker. As a child actress, she was fired from her first commercial because she told her director he was rude. The director, who was not used to such spunk in a 5 year old, turned to Wasserman's agent and, in a scene right out of Hollywood, said with high drama, "You can take her home now; she'll never work in this town again!"

But she did work again, and continued to appear in commercials through age 13, when she decided it was time to reclaim her childhood, go to Halloween parties and play soccer.

It was her risk-taking that helped her decide to leave Los Angeles, California, to attend Wellesley. On the one hand, she knew attending a single sex college would not be a typical undergraduate experience; on the other, she believed the odds were very good that she would find other risk-takers just like her at Wellesley. "There's something about an 18-year-old girl who can say to her friends, 'I am ready to go to a woman's college.'"

She has not regretted the decision for even a moment. Wellesley has allowed her to continue to play out her passion on the stage, while double majoring in neuroscience. Using both sides of her brain is an opportunity she doesn't believe she could find anywhere else, and it is embraced and respected. Her lab team comes to all of her performances and her acting colleagues show an interest in her science.

In fact, one Saturday night, between two performances of Shakespeare's "Richard III," she had to rush over to her lab to rinse lobster brains. Six of her acting colleagues invited themselves along. In partial stage dress, they gathered around a microscope, examined the brain tissue and expressed wonder and fascination in her research.

"It sounds really kooky, but I felt like this is why I came to Wellesley, because people would care about and honor the different facets of my life."