Web Only: Weaned, via Whitaker
When Peter Cariani was a teenager, both of his parents died. So as an adult starting his career, "I had a fairly fatalistic view towards life," says the scientist, now 51. "I never expected to make much money, but I thought there would be a niche for me that was sustainable and would help me provide for my family and put my kids through college."
As a graduate student at Binghamton University (then SUNY Binghamton), Cariani pursued lofty questions such as how biology differs from artificial intelligence. Upon graduating, he couldn't find labs doing anything close to theoretical biology, so in 1990, he accepted a postdoc in the lab of esteemed auditory physiologist Nelson Kiang at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Institute, affiliated with MIT and Harvard Medical School. "I wasn't an auditory person," Cariani says. "So I had ...
