Jill Einstein

— 25th — (1999) Bill Clinton

THE last twenty-five years have been full of experiences, work, friendships, and love. Immediately after graduating, I began taking courses to prepare for graduate school in neurobiology; I wanted to understand how people saw (vision research) rather than to continue to describe what people saw (art history). I supported myself by being a technician and being a proctor and advisor to first-year students in the Yard. I learned then that I very much enjoy the commitment and energy of undergraduates. Just as I was to go to graduate school, I fell in love and became one of the first commuting couples and then, spouses, while my husband worked in Chicago and I went to graduate school in Philadelphia. I got my degree and moved to Chicago, where I did a postdoctoral fellowship at Northwestern. When my husband came to Duke, I followed, did a second postdoc, got a grant, and am still here after fourteen years. I am still doing research on the brain but unfortunately, have just been divorced after seventeen years of an awkward, but well-intentioned marriage.

I gave birth to a wonderful boy, who is now nine years old. He continues to delight, surprise, and excite me with his talents, good humor, and great capacity for love; motherhood has been one of my life's greatest joys. My profession has brought joys as well. I moved from research on the visual system to research on the aging, Alzheimer's disease, and the effects of estrogen on aging neurons. There are wonderful people in my lab and it is a great pleasure to make a scientific story, be part of an intellectual community, and to understand something about how the brain works. Along the way, I became bat mitzvah, involving myself more in the Jewish traditions and prayer. I have been on the board of our synagogue as well as its vice president. I also teach and design courses for undergraduates at Duke. What I have learned through this has made me want to write a number of books — top on my list, a book on mind and brain. I love to give talks both to my peers and to general audiences about science. I love good food, fine wine, and seeing beautiful things — natural and man-made. However, my greatest pleasures are watching my son develop and finding out what's on the minds of my close colleagues, friends and loved ones. Over the years since college, I have come to the firm belief that it is what we do that matters. My future goals are to continue saying, "yes" and to do more.

— 50th — (2022) Joseph Biden

Well…since the 25th report, and continuing to say, ‘yes,’ life expanded in ways unexpected.

Due to what turned out to be an acrimonious divorce (in spite of early good intentions), on a very sad day, I closed my lab at Duke and started working at the National Institutes of Health in science administration, living in Bethesda, MD. There, I was lucky enough to begin a relationship with the man who is my current life partner, Brian Cantwell Smith who, ironically enough, had moved to Duke after I moved to Bethesda. After the Beltway shooter, the anthrax scares, SARS, and the invasion of Iraq, we decided to stop commuting to see each other and took the opportunity to move together to Canada (Brian’s Canadian and I always wanted to be).

In Toronto, I did some more science admin being appointed associate director for University of Toronto Partnerships at the Centre for Research in Women’s Health (associated with Women’s College Hospital) and took up teaching at UofT’s School of Public Health.

It was a good time – I loved living in Canada, my son was thriving in school, Brian was dean of the UofT iSchool, and I was learning and engaging in women’s health admin and research. It was at this time that I published my book, “Sex and the Brain,” designed and taught the course, “Gender and Health,” founded and led, “The Collaborative Specialization in Women’s Health” (a graduate degree add-on), organized a conference on “Re-theorizing Women’s Health,” and started my research on Toronto-Somali women with female genital circumcision/mutilation/cutting (FGC). My goal with the latter was to change the focus from their genitals to their brains as I theorized that the cutting affected their central nervous system engendering a chronic pain condition as well as instantiating gender. I have loved working on that project and with those women. I wish they had been my high school friends. It was with them that I worked out my current approach to the brain called, “Situated Neuroscience” (à la Haraway).

After 2 years of more admin, I got very, very lucky and was offered a position in the Psychology Dept at UofT. I went in as an associate professor and am now, full. It was a dream come true and a miracle – people don’t usually get to return to academia from science administration. So, for the last 16 years, I’ve been able to run a research lab, get grants, and do the research I felt most important for understanding women’s brains. In 2016, I was awarded the Wilfred and Joyce Posluns Chair in Women’s Brain Health and Aging and I’ve been acting on my academic and research dreams ever since. We are developing a picture of what happens to women’s cognition and brains after early life ovarian removal (how important are estrogens for women’s brain health, anyway?), continuing the work on whole body changes after FGC, understanding how gender norms intersect with stress, and lots of other cool things. I just got funded to study cognition and brain in aging trans women. Two years ago, I started the Canadian Organization for Gender and Sex (COGS) Research where we are trying to bring sex and gender back together.

Brian and I are still together: challenging, comforting, caring for, and amusing each other. During the pandemic we bought a place in New Brunswick near St. Andrews by the Sea – just across the border from Maine (once settled, visitors most welcomed!). Aside from the incredibly beautiful Bay of Fundy, the main attraction is that it is about 30 minutes from where that boy who was 9 in the 25th report, now lives and works as a regional planner and proponent for low cost housing.

Aside from losing my brother precipitously in 2008 (Peter Einstein, ’71), life has been good to me. I have a wonderful partner, terrific son, and super nieces and nephews. One of my dearest friends is still Jordan J alum, Barney Rush. He and my dear friend Marjorie (who I connived he should marry) are with us at least once a year at our soon-to-be-ex cottage on Georgian Bay (Amanda Island) and I am in good touch with wonderful Alaka Wali and Ellen Peel. Canada has been rich with decency and opportunity. I relish my family, friends, students, and work.

University of Toronto