The métiers of professor and punker may seem worlds apart, but Cornell faculty member David Rand ’04 sees parallels—quite a lot of them, in fact. “I’ve got this spiel,” Rand says, “about how playing in a punk rock band and being an academic are extremely similar occupations.”
As he explains, both start with a germ of an idea—in science it’s a hypothesis or observation, in music it’s a riff, lyric, or bit of melody—that must be developed into something coherent, even beautiful.
“But you have to capture it—writing the paper or recording the song—in order to share it with other people, and that’s always the most painful part. But if you don’t, it doesn’t count for anything, because no one will find out about it.”
Then, Rand says, you put your creation out into the world, and hope people like it.
“You count your citations, or your plays on Spotify. And you go on tour; every time I give a seminar or a talk at a conference, I’m thinking, ‘I’m on tour, selling records.’”
And yes: Rand knows a fair amount about both worlds.
Takumi Matsuzawa/Provided
Membraneless organelles known as “condensates” form and disappear every day to help organize the biochemistry in our cells. This image captures in vitro condensates dissolving after a specific chemical is injected from the right. The color represents the concentration of the protein that makes up the condensates.
