When I was about seven or eight, I asserted that I wanted to be a scientist, or so my parents told me years later, even though I would have had little idea of what that word meant. In my mind, I was perhaps associating it with making momentous discoveries that were immediately recognized and applauded by the whole world. Soon after, I avidly read Madame Curie, the book by Eve Curie about her mother Marie and how she overcame poverty and the many challenges faced by women in the late 19th and early 20th century to become a Nobel prize-winning scientist. Marie Curie became my lodestar for the future and thanks to my parents’ support and self-sacrifice, I did eventually become a scientist.