What surprising job have you had in the past?

A summer job monitoring a marine proton precession magnetometer aboard the USNS Wyman, a Naval Oceanographic Office survey vessel. The data on magnetic anomalies contributed to studies of plate tectonics and continental drift. (Job perks: Room and board were included, plus time ashore in Boston, Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the Azores.)

What would you want to be doing if not your current profession?

Editing academic articles or books. It’s like auditing a course except that you’re paid—not paying—to learn. Plus, it’s a service profession.

What do you hate that everyone else loves?

Reality television.

What do you love that everyone else hates?

Mass-market candy, especially wine gums, salty licorice, and spiced jelly beans.

What was the last book you finished?

The Anomaly, by Hervé Le Tellier.

What was the last book you recommended to a friend?

The Anomaly, by Hervé Le Tellier.

What was the last book you put down before you finished it?

The Personal Librarian, Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray’s book about Belle da Costa Greene who oversaw J. P. Morgan’s collections. (I put it down to read The Anomaly for book group and hope to take it up again.)

What book changed your life?

Not a particular book but the realization, around age 9, that books of all sorts could provide views and experiences unencountered in my daily life.

What person, alive or dead, would you want to write your life story?

In a perfect world, my life story would be a New York Times obit written by now-retired Margalit Fox. She does quirky well. Failing that, I’d be content with the epitaph Fox has proposed for herself: “She was a decent stylist. She didn’t get too many things wrong. She didn’t tick too many people off.”

What’s your least useful talent?

Seeing both sides of every argument I’m in.

Tell us the best piece of advice you’ve received—or the worst.

It’s the best and the worst: “Be good.”

What advice would you give to a brand-new Maroon?

Crescat scientia; vita excolatur.

What’s your most vivid UChicago memory?

The many memories of sitting in on sessions of Karl Weintraub’s, AB’49, AM’52, PhD’57, History of Western Civilization; Lauren Berlant’s American Women and Writing; and Mark Strand on Melville’s Moby-Dick. Also Joe Williams’s Little Red Schoolhouse (aka Academic and Professional Writing) and Amy Kass, AB’62, and Leon Kass’s (LAB’54, SB’58, MD’62) co-taught Ethics in Everyday Courtship. The list goes on.