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Paul in his University of Chicago office in the early '80s

There have been two times in my life when I could not stop thinking about a job I had interviewed for and desperately wanted. One is my current job as a Psychology professor, and the other was being Paul's lab tech. And I did not even know the man. I just knew I wanted that job, that it would be right for me, that I had to have it. How could I have known how right I was, that more than 25 years later, I would still talk about it, remember things I had learned, value it as much as I do? And for so many more reasons than what it offered then, steady employment post college, with vacation and health benefits. I got most of my training directly from Paul, as his prior tech Charlie was departing quickly. I expressed some anxiety about being able to do the most important part of the job, brain surgery. His response was to tell me to hold out my hands, curl and clench my fingers in a partial fist, and hold them steady. He pronounced that I had "surgeon's paws", and that I would be fine. And I believed him. There was so much about working with Paul that went like that. He expressed his confidence in me, and I believed him. Sometimes his confidence was about the fact that yes, I could do that figure just one more time and get it exactly right (pre-Mac days), and my belief in myself might have been a bit grudging after the umpteumpth version. Paul's lab, at that time, was small, but very diverse in terms of student level. He worked with undergraduates (Ari Berkowitz above), techs, several M.D/Ph.D. students, and collaborated with a number of other faculty. I never felt low status, despite being almost the the lowest in that hierarchy, and I knew this was special when I looked around at other labs in the Neurscience dept at U of C. I felt privileged to work for Paul. My two years with him were years of massive transition, as he married again, became a father to two wonderful children, and was denied tenure. In that time, with all of that going on, he found time to help me with my applications to graduate school in psychology, to help me take my next professional steps.

How do you miss someone you have only seen a few times in a quarter century, only emailed occasionally? I do miss him, and that tells me how important Paul has been to me, not only for those two years as they unfolded, but everything since. I cherish his memory, and am forever grateful for the many things he taught me about living and doing science.
Julia Heberle
Albright College
Psychology Department