Grant Jensen

I remember sitting in one of Mr. Lange's Senior English classes, hot and bored, hoping with everyone else that we could get through without it becoming apparent that none of us had read the book we were supposed to, when a cherished LAHS friend (whom I won't name in case it embarasses her), stated "Grant, I know what you Mormon guys do: you'll get married right away, have a bunch of kids, and wait to die."  .....  Well, it looks like she was right, but I sure feel busy during this "waiting" part! 

Like any self-respecting cone-head from Los Alamos, after High School I started college as a physics major.  Having always been a deeply religious person, I went to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.  Michael Lyman was my roomate, and I maintained close ties to several of my LAHS friends throughout college, as can be seen in the pictures.  Within weeks of arriving, I met my future wife, Angela Schramm, a short brunette (my friends always told me I would marry a short brunette!) from Canada, and we started dating by about February.  By late spring I knew that she would be the one for me if she'd have me, but neither of us was ready to get married.  I left to serve a two-year mission for my church.  I was asked to learn Spanish and go to New York City.  I spent most of my time in Spanish Harlem on the upper west side of Manhattan teaching mostly Dominicans and Puerto Ricans about the Mormon faith.  It was a profoundly difficult but spiritually rewarding experience all at the same time.  Important things happened.

Angie and I wrote to each other throughout my time in New York, and then we married soon after I returned.  Like me, Angie was a serious student - most of our courtship was actually spent in the library(!), and she graduated ahead of me and started teaching middle school science and math.  Near the end of my time at BYU I got excited about biology, and so after graduation Angie and I and our first child Ashley moved to California so I could pursue graduate work in Biophysics at Stanford.  I had two life-changing mentors there.  The first was my graduate advisor, who taught me how to do science and lead a lab.  Two years ago we got the thrilling news that he was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for experiments that I had been a small part of years earlier.  The second mentor was a local church Bishop who asked me to be his assistant and who showed me how much good I could do with my life if I chose.  To this day I continue to think about these mentors' and my father's examples and try to live up to all of them.  Angie gave birth (I love the verb "gave" in that phrase) to our son Taylor and then another daughter, Lydia, at Stanford.  After graduation we moved to Concord, California so I could do a "post-doc" at Berkeley.  Our fourth child, Natalie, was born soon after.

I finally stopped getting trained and took my first real job in 2002 as an (assistant) professor of Biology at Caltech in 2002.  We moved to Arcadia, California (part of the greater Los Angeles area), and bought a home in a neighborhood where we thought we could raise our family well and make a contribution.  At Caltech  I lead a group of ~15 staff scientists, post-docs, graduate students, and an occasional undergraduate in ultrastructural studies of bacteria and viruses, including HIV.  We are pioneering a new form of electron microscopy that allows us to "see" how all the protein machines inside cells work together.  All I really do is write emails, talk to folks about experiments, write papers and grants, and fly around and give talks and seminars, but  I really like it.  If anybody is interested, you can read more about it at http://www.jensenlab.caltech.edu.

Here in Arcadia our last two children were born.  I didn't know whether to feel old or young last summer when on the one hand, it finally became clear that I would get tenure and really get to be a career scientist, but on the other hand the doctors told my wife her pregnancy was high risk because of her advanced age!  Whether young or old, we're certainly now deep into what will be the central phase of our adult lives where we either accomplish or not the things we feel are important.  So I go to work each day and then coach soccer, basketball, give trumpet lessons, teach Scouts, and serve in our local church.  Angie is a full-time mom, leading a Brownie troop, teaching piano, volunteering as class Mom, and organizing ladies' events at church and in the community.  In between we drive kids to dance, violin, voice, baseball, and gymnastics.  That's why I say this "waiting to die" phase is so busy!

Thank you everyone for posting the bios that you did.  I really enjoyed reading them, and extra thanks to the organizing committee for putting all this together.  I have so many fond memories of Los Alamos and growing up with all of you, I just feel deeply grateful.  I'm sorry I won't be attending the reunion, but wish you all the best and dearly hope to see many of you again someday.

The pictures are of (1) graduation day with Matthew Rice, Michael Lyman, Robert Parker, Kevin Ramsey, Andy Gartz, Kevin Stokes, Nathan Helm; (2) Robert Parker, Michael Lyman, Andy Gartz, Ward Boyack, and me amongst other friends our freshman year at BYU; (3) me as a missionary with a little kid from Harlem; (4) Angie and me, Matthew Rice, Andy Gartz, Ward Boyack, Michael Lyman and Nathan Helm on our wedding day (these guys came all the way to Canada to be part of our wedding party!); and (5) my family today, from tall to small, in front of our home in Arcadia.  We named the little guy after me: Benjamin Grant Jensen.  Hope he doesn't mind.