Catherine T. Hunt
is president of the American Chemical Society and leader in technology partnerships, Rohm & Haas Co., in Spring HouseQuotation to live by:
My mom always said:"Ask and you shall receive;
Seek and you shall find;
Knock and it shall be opened unto you." (Matthew 7:7)
My graduate adviser always said, "You don't ask, you don't get!"
A former boss at Rohm & Haas always said: "Katie, if I'm always saying yes, then you are just not asking for enough." The corollary to this is: Watch what you ask for.
Books on my nightstand right now: The World Is Flat, by Thomas Friedman; Green to Gold, by Daniel Esty and Andrew Winston. The pressing problems today are the sustainability of energy, food and water, and commercial processes can and must be both economically viable and environmentally friendly.
Favorite authors, fiction: Madeleine L'Engle, J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling.
Favorite author, nonfiction: Jill Ker Conway, author of True North, The Road from Coorain, and A Woman's Education.
Favorite poets:
Favorite beach reading: Crossword puzzles.
Book or author other people praise
but I never liked:
Books that influenced how I live my life: How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, by Michael J. Gelb, and The Art of Speed Reading People by Paul D. Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger.
TV show I'm not ashamed to admit I watch: NUMB3RS, on CBS.
TV show I hate to admit I like: Speed Racer.
Favorite comic strip:
Movies I love so much I've watched them more than twice: The Wizard of Oz; Gaslight (Ingrid Bergman at her best).
Web sites I visit regularly: Google.
If you turned my car radio on right now, it would be tuned to: WRTI-FM (90.1), WHYY-FM (90.9) . . . OK, truthfully, I like WMMR-FM (93.3).
Magazines I read regularly: Chemical and Engineering News, Science, the Utne Reader.
Favorite type of music: From
blues (guitarist David Jacobs-Strain) to classical (Bach, Beethoven
and Handel (especially harpsichord).
Last concert/performance attended:
Recording I play when my soul needs a lift: Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D, or any of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, or "The Greatest Love of All," sung by Whitney Houston.
Person in my field I most admire: Mary Good - scientist, researcher, businesswoman, mentor, friend.
Living person I'd most like to join for dinner and conversation: President Bush - I'd like to share with him the importance of educating the next generation. I'd bring along my 15-year-old son, James.
Heroes from history: Queen Elizabeth I of England; Johann Sebastian Bach; Marie Curie; trailblazing chemist Percy Lavon Julian.
If I had the power to order all of the Philadelphia region to read one book, it would be: The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss.