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In the early 80's, I was an undergrad at the U. of C. in need of research experience to get into medical school. And so when Paul agreed to let me volunteer in his lab, I felt a sense of relief because I had successfully duped him into thinking that I was really interested in research. In reality, I was hoping to be a gofer for one of the grad student and do some mindless job which wouldn't drain too much brain energy. Doing something uninteresting was of course impossible with Paul and sure enough, within a few months, I found myself applying to graduate school instead of medical school.

My time in Paul's lab really set the framework for how I would eventually do research in my own lab. Back then, we were looking for the central pattern generator that allows the frog to calculate the location of the prey and then generate a sequence of ballistic movements to capture it. There was a rather complicated mathematical model at the time suggesting that it was in the cerebellum. Neither of us was particularly adept at math so we were both pushing our boundaries. Nevertheless, with some effort and through countless discussions, we were able to get a rudimentary understanding of the equations and design a battery of experiments to test the model. In the end, the theory turned out to be wrong but I became a believer in the general approach.

I owe the man a lot. Had he been even a teeny bit unenthusiastic about science or uncaring about my project, I would have chosen a different path.