The author describes her life's pathway from her beginnings at a time when women were not well represented in the sciences. Her grandparents were immigrants to the United States. Although her parents were not able to go to college because of the Great Depression, they supported her education and other adventures. In addition to her interest in science, she describes her interest and involvement in politics. Her education at Oberlin, Stanford, and Harvard prepared her for her independent career at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she was an affirmative action appointment. Her research initially centered on the plant photoreceptor phytochrome, but later in her career she investigated circadian rhythms in plants, discovering and characterizing one of the members of the central oscillator.
Keywords: autobiography; circadian rhythms; phytochrome.