Sara Majetich grew up in a steel town and coal region surrounded by science and technology. She was fascinated by the striking band of colors--gray, black, red--that were apparent in her home town, and equally curious about the steel mills and coal mines. In an attempt to broaden her interest beyond math and science, her parents stipulated that she could take an advanced math course only if she agreed to take tennis lessons. She took the lessons but stayed with science, earning a bachelor's and master's degrees in chemistry and a Ph.D. in physics.

I have always been curious about where things came from. I grew up seeing lumps of coal in everyone's backyard in Pittsburgh. This is a hilly city where road cuts exposed many layers of rock below the earth's surface. I remember wondering what caused bands of gray limestone, black bituminous coal, and reddish iron-containing rocks. I started collecting different kinds of rocks and reading about rocks and minerals at an early age. In elementary school I learned how coal and iron ore were used to make steel. My class visited a coal mine where we donned hard hats with lights on them and went down into the mine. I was fascinated to be underground and actually see the coal seams, the machinery, and how they measured the oxygen level. We also visited a steel mill, and I was impressed with the huge blast furnaces and the terrible noise. Steelmaking was done on such a grand scale, and it seemed very important. I remember looking through what I now know is the cobalt glass filter to see the liquid metal which eventually turned into ingots. I was impressed by how they combined different rocks and created shiny steel.

Like many Pittsburghers, I had relatives who worked in both the coal mines and the steel mills. I'm not sure how much of an influence this had on me, although I remember how dirty my great-uncle was when he came home from working in the mines. I am sure that my interest in coal mines and steel mills came less from an interest in "technical" things than from an interest in "Pittsburgh" things, since I knew people who were involved with mines and mills. My parents were confused by this interest in coal and rocks, and for a while they tried to divert my attention to "girl things" like dolls, but it just didn't work. I was never interested in dolls but instead was always asking for things like Tinkertoys or Erector sets (which I never got!).

Even as a child I wanted to do something important, to have a career, and to make a contribution to society. I was drawn to technical fields as a way to achieve my goals. I remember some people questioned my seriousness and the appropriateness of my interest in male-oriented fields, but I never doubted that it was right for me. I also remember a few times when my parents indicated that boys were better at math, despite the fact that my mother is much better at math than my father. I recall similar comments from a few teachers. But I always aspired to high-profile, "male" professions: astronaut, nuclear physicist, chemist. These interests helped to define me. The knowledge that I was good in math and science helped me to persist even when others doubted I would make it, and even when my own self-esteem was low.

By high school my interest in math and science was really strong. One year my parents bargained with me: they would allow me to take an advanced math course if I also took tennis lessons. Although both of them were pretty good athletes, I was never really interested in sports. We still laugh about this incident. Most kids could only play tennis if they did their math homework, but for me it was the reverse.

I attended Princeton as an undergraduate and planned to major in chemistry. There were very few women students in the field, and many of my professors asked why I was interested. Some people speculated that my interest was in dating the male chemistry students. They couldn't understand that my interest in chemistry was no different than that of my male classmates. Some classmates had equally bad attitudes. It made my college experience less pleasant, but my love of science kept me going. I learned early on that scientists and their personalities do not define science. The work can be beautiful even when done by people whose behavior is not.

I received my master's degree in chemistry from Columbia University. I met my husband while at Columbia, married, and went with him to his first academic position at the University of Georgia. That's when I switched to physics. When I entered the Ph.D. program in physics, I was the first woman in the department. People quite frequently asked why I was there and whether there wasn't a more "appropriate" field for a woman like me. Fortunately, my advisers didn't adopt this attitude. But I do remember one incident when, in response to some difficulty I was having as a new graduate student, someone remarked that "women and Asians just aren't good at that." I made sure, from that point on, that I was good at whatever I did. I knew that I had to be the best to gain respect and success.

Graduate school was the first time I worked in a machine shop. In junior high girls weren't allowed to take shop classes. I realized that being able to use the equipment was important for my success, so I learned how to use machines like lathes, drill presses, and milling machines. I got along fine with the guys in the shop at the University of Georgia. I was such an oddity that I wasn't perceived as a threat, but they were pleasantly surprised when I was at the top of my class.

There were other, less flattering reactions. No single one bothered me a great deal, although they had a cumulative effect. More bothersome were the two men's bathrooms side by side outside my lab with no women's bathroom nearby! Or the fact that people were afraid to give me any feedback because they were terrified that I would run crying to the ladies room (assuming I could find one!). Fortunately, my love of science kept me going and the hardships made me even more determined to succeed.

Today I am a physics professor at Carnegie Mellon University. My scientific knowledge has increased my appreciation of rocks, and I make my living studying the properties of tiny crystals containing a few hundred to a few thousand atoms. My research in solid state physics is interdisciplinary, overlapping areas of physics, chemistry, materials science, and electrical engineering. I strike a balance between investigating the scientific reasons that small crystals behave the way they do, and designing new materials based on these particles for applications such as xerography, making computer disks, and medical uses like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Because of my scientific training, I now understand why one cadmium compound is red while another is yellow, and why some materials are easily magnetized while others are not. I still enjoy hunting for rocks, but now I think of them in terms of what properties they possess and what applications they might be useful for.

Chemists approach their subject by thinking about what happens when a few atoms interact with another few atoms and you have a chemical reaction. Physicists like to think about what happens inside a block of lead with millions and millions and millions of atoms. Since both of these pictures involve atoms, there should be something that describes what happens in between, when you have a few hundred or a few thousand atoms. This science is neither pure chemistry nor pure physics, and that's the area I'm working in--trying to understand how physics and chemistry are connected. My work has many important applications. For example, computers and their components are getting smaller and smaller. Technology is moving toward the point where we will have devices with ten thousand atoms or less, and there's a real need to understand how this works.

In my lab we make and study tiny particles. We examine what happens with their optical properties when they are excited by lasers; we have a fancy apparatus called a SQUID (Superconducting Quantum Interference Device) magnetometer to look at their magnetic behavior. We also have electron microscopes to study the size and type of atoms. We're making particles smaller than the ones that already exist on magnetic computer disks so we can increase the storage capacity. Someday you may rent movies on video disks that contain our magnetic particles.

My research involves working with a large number of people: typically three graduate students, about a dozen undergraduates, other faculty, technicians, and scientists from other institutions. I am a particularly strong advocate of undergraduate research and take on many students in my lab. Working with others is necessary to train new scientists, to gain expertise through collaborations, and to share results. It is also one of the most enjoyable aspects of a technical career. I spend a lot of time in the laboratory talking with students about our research. For me, research is very rewarding and very personal. If you make no effort in research, you go nowhere. When you finish a piece of research, that accomplishment is truly yours. Doing research is also incredibly demanding. An enormous amount of dedication is required, but how many people devote their lives to making something new and better? Researchers are by definition problem solvers. Since there's no shortage of problems in today's world, we're lucky to have people dedicated to research.

Since I am a faculty member, my work involves more than my research. I spend plenty of time in my office writing grant proposals and papers. During the year I also teach and attend many meetings on campus. I travel frequently to scientific conferences or to other universities to talk about our results.

Because my husband was an assistant professor when I began graduate school, I entered my faculty career with a pretty realistic idea of what academic life was like. I remember watching one of my husband's friends help him plan what he needed to set up his lab, and thinking about what I would need if I wanted to do certain types of experiments. As a graduate student I didn't see how much time my professors spent writing research proposals and journal articles, but I got some experience as a postdoc that proved to be wonderful training. Even though I knew it was coming when I took my first faculty job, I was still shocked at how much time it took to write those first few proposals. It gets easier, but it still is very time intensive.

Because I am in a nontraditional field for women, I am conscious of how I differ from my male colleagues and from women in more traditional areas. I have to have a better understanding than my male peers of my goals and specific knowledge of how to reach them. This self-knowledge enables outsiders to become insiders. It took me a while to realize, for example, that when I said, "I think ...." I was more likely to be right than some men who said, "This is ... " more confidently. Since I have to function in a male-oriented environment, I have learned to speak more like men, projecting authority and interrupting frequently. Sometimes it seems strange, but it has been effective in enabling me to be a successful scientist. In other ways stereotypical female behavior has also helped me to be successful. Traditionally research groups are very hierarchical, with a detached and remote research adviser waiting for graduate students to prove their worth. My group is more like a family unit or a team. There is a lot of give and take. I genuinely expect all my students to become good scientists. Having the flexibility to borrow from different styles and find a solution that works is essential in nontraditional careers.

My husband is still at the University of Georgia, where he is now a full professor. Neither of us is happy living apart, but the job market dictates this separation. I sometimes worry that I'm not a very good role model for my students, but right now there's not much flexibility in the job market. My husband does most of the commuting because he's tenured and has postdocs who can handle the lab as well as some of his classes.

There are a lot of options for careers in science or technical fields. I remember receiving advice from people who meant well but assumed I'd be happier doing something else, but I believe that what is most critical is to know yourself well so that you can make the best choices. What's best for someone else may not be ideal for you. My own judgment hasn't always been perfect, but it's been better than other peoples'; I have to live with the consequences. When times are tough, it helps to remember I've had a say in what I am doing, and that gives me peace of mind.