Sandy Becker has been a practicing scientist for 27 years. The first 25 years were spent doing research in developmental biology at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. To supplement her income she moonlighted as a science journalist. Before discovering her true calling as a biologist she worked as a writer of civil service tests, a fifth-grade teacher, a folk singer and a mom. Since leaving Wesleyan she has worked for Advanced Cell Technology, a biotech company in Massachusetts, hoping to make something medically useful out of embryonic stem cells.