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= Lab Girl = From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Lab Girl is a 2016 memoir by American geochemist, geobiologist, and professor Hope Jahren, published by Alfred A. Knopf. It is the recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography, a New York Times notable book, winner of the American Associate for the Advancement of Science prize for Excellence in Science Books, a finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, and was named one of the Best Books of the Year in The Washington Post, TIME.com, NPR, Slate, Entertainment Weekly, Newsday, Minneapolis Star Tribuneand Kirkus Reviews.

Contents
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 * 1Summary
 * 2Critical Reception
 * 3References
 * 4External links

Summary[edit]
Jahren’s memoir is separated into three parts, excluding the prologue and the epilogue. Each section follows roughly the same pattern of one chapter that follows Jahren’s life and one chapter that describes an element of Jahren’s research or of general botanical facts.

Part One, “Roots and Leaves,” describes Jahren’s childhood in rural Minnesota, through her undergraduate education at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, her graduate education at the University of California, Berkeley and the conference of her PhD, and ending with the beginning of her first academic job as an assistant professor at Georgia Institute of Technology. Jahren’s relationship with her colleague and friend, Bill, begins in this section, and carries on throughout the book as one of the few constants in Jahren’s life.

Part Two, “Wood and Knots,” describes Jahren’s experiences building her first lab in Georgia to her decision to leave Georgia Tech and take a position at Johns Hopkins University. Jahren describes the worries shared by many scientists about finding the money to build their labs, conduct their experiments, and pay their staff, done via applying for grants and receiving funding from the government or private institutions. Jahren includes anecdotes about traveling to an attraction called “Monkey Jungle” in Florida on a week long student field trip, as well as the experience of attempting to drive from Georgia to California for a conference in less than a week’s time, resulting in the crashing of a university van. After running out of funding at Georgia Tech, Jahren accepts a position at Johns Hopkins University and secures a job for Bill as well.

Part Three, “Flowers and Fruit,” describes Jahren’s life while building her second and third labs, marrying her husband, and having a son. Jahren leaves Johns Hopkins after the birth of her son, due in part to an incident that occured with a supervisor when she was banned from entering her lab while pregnant. After leaving Johns Hopkins, Jahren and her family (including Bill) move to Hawaii, where she and Bill establish a lab at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, where Jahren is now a tenured professor.

In addition to relating her life’s work, Jahren touches on larger themes in the scientific community, including the currently problems with securing funding, the over-saturation of the market with scientists, and the sexism that female scientists face in the field.

Critical Reception[edit]
Reviews of the memoir were generally positive.

Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times wrote that Lahren had “the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist,” quoting from Vladimir Nabokov, and went on to describe the book as “engrossing” and “thrilling,” going on to say that Jahren “does for botany what Oliver Sacks’s essays did for neurology, what Stephen Jay Gould's writings did for paleontology.”

Lucie Green of The Guardian wrote that "Jahren writes: “Love and learning are similar, in that they can never be wasted.” And neither is time spent reading this book."

Kirkus Reviews wrote that readers were "engaged beyond expectation," as "Jahren transcends both memoir and science writing in this literary fusion of both genres."

Leah Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekly rated Lab Girl at an A-, writing that it was a "warm, witty recounting" of Jahren's life as well as providing "a fascinating portrait of her engagement with the natural world."

Amy Steward of The Washington Post wrote that "Jahren has taken the form of the memoir and done something remarkable with it. She’s made the experience of reading the book mimic her own lived experience in a way that few writers are capable of."

Jennifer Rohn of Nature described Lab Girl as "Clear, compelling and uncompromisingly honest . . . Hope Jahren is the voice that science has been waiting for."

NPR's On Point described Lab Girl as "A powerful new memoir . . . Jahren is a remarkable scientist who turns out to be a remarkable writer as well. . . .  Think Stephen Jay Gould or Oliver Sacks. But Hope Jahren is a woman in science, who speaks plainly to just how rugged that can be. And to the incredible machinery of life around us."

Eugenia Bone of The Wall Street Journal wrote that Lab Girl is "Lyrical . . .  illuminating . . . Offers a lively glimpse into a scientifically inclined mind."

References[edit]

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External links[edit]

 * Publisher's video overview. [1 ] Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
 * Lab Girl web page. Publisher's website. [2 ]