my name is Shannon and my story begins
with my maternal American grandfather a
colonel in the US Army before a period
in his career was stationed in Japan
many years after World War two on one
side and my paternal American sorry my
paternal Japanese grandmother who lived
through and survived the Tokyo bombings
that flattened her city to devastation
on the other and when I mean devastated
I mean her family her friends everything
gone decades later I was born to their
respective children an American mother
and a Japanese father and much to the
surprise of the Japanese doctors I was
born looking like this I can’t imagine
how hard it must have been for my
grandmother to look into the blue eyes
of her grandchild and see the reflection
of what used to be the enemy and yet for
a moment history stood still for her and
all that had been was born anew in this
face my face both Japanese and American
a face she loved without conviction with
with completely full abandon because
some things in this life rise above even
give me a second I was born already
going against the grain into an
incredibly conformist culture where than
saying the nail that sticks up gets
hammered down is inherently ingrained
within the psyche of the culture and I
heard that you Greeks have that as well
in your culture this is a picture of me
in central Tokyo with my Japanese
neighbor friend clearly I’m the nail
that sticks out but I was also born to
an incredibly loving and smart mother
who knew what it took to survive and fit
in and she did everything she could
working so hard to make sure that every
child every family knew exactly who I
was before I ever stepped foot into
school inviting them over offering cake
and ice cream to the older kids all to
assure that they would look out for me
and I wouldn’t be bullied and to the
credit of my courageous mother and those
in my small neighborhood I was accepted
I was protected there I say it I was
loved though I was the nail that stuck
out it went against every norm of
society this white child and her white
mother the gaijin as they called us and
the Japanese father living amongst them
in the local way in the local language
it took me years to be able to look back
and see acceptance where I only
initially saw the failings and flaws as
a child but now in this moment from my
vantage point in midlife I can look back
and I can see the remarkable acceptance
I was given by those who chose to look
past that strict norms of society and
see me and because of this because of
them I am just as Japanese as I am
American no matter what I look like on
the outside and I love both my countries
deep
because it runs in my blood and in my
soul at the age of seven my parents told
me we have to move to the United States
and this time I look like everyone else
on the outside but I had a funny accent
I sounded like some weird dubbed over a
movie if you thought I was putting it on
and I had to attend English as a second
language course and I was that weird kid
that considered squid guts and curry
rice to be an exciting meal instead of
the typically American hamburgers and
hotdogs I was not the all-american girl
I have spent my life trying to find my
place in the world as a third culture
kid trying to find prescribed acceptance
that would offer me a defined place in a
defined role I have lived in more places
than I can count in my lifetime
all took place is so culturally
different even within the boundaries of
the United States places like Seattle
Washington that displayed beautiful
multi ethnic communities without a
second thought to places in the American
South like North Carolina where deep
historical racial divides still strongly
remain and I have learned how to survive
and adapt in each new place but I still
longed for identity for some societally
accepted purpose never knowing what that
really was in my 20s I decided to take
on archaeology for my undergraduate
studies and that took me to Jerusalem
for a year to study Second Temple period
history and it was then during the
second uprising of violence called the
Intifada where I experienced the painful
clash between Israelis and Palestinians
for the first time and at that point I
knew I couldn’t go back to the United
States and live a normal life but I had
to give up my degree move back to the
region and help those in any way I could
much of the surprised and complete freak
out of my parents I have to say
I spent nearly a decade in the region
trying to find my place in a region
where all the cultures and religions are
so vastly different from my own trying
to immerse myself fully never accepting
that it would not be possible I worked
in with victims of terror in policy
analysis and in conflict management but
I’m not going to talk more about my time
there because I’ve long since moved on
from the ten years I spent crossing
borders witnessing the suffering trying
to make sense of a conflict for myself
and for others I’ve learned with age and
experience that some stories conflicts
and histories run so deep and so
personal no one from the outside can
solve it or change it it has to begin
so here I am in my 30s having given up
my degree having moved to a region of
conflict having taken on a unique
experience that I called a career for a
decade and now it was all coming to an
end I had no idea where did how to
change course where to go what to do and
I remember sitting on the floor in a
mine Jordan in my friend’s apartment in
the dark one night with a single candle
lit at the greatest low of my life
feeling like there was no way out I was
up against a wall I was out of Hope I
was out of money I was out of ideas
my friend seeing my state of need said
you know what why don’t I give you a
ticket to Geneva Switzerland where I
live so you can rest
think and get your feet back under you I
remember flying out of Amman seeing the
ground getting smaller and smaller
beneath me and crying from fear knowing
everything I had built for a decade was
now totally gone and I know some of you
in this audience today know what that
feels like where you put your blood
sweat and tears into something and it
crumbles beneath you in a second
gone
I had to pivot quickly I had no choice
my time in Geneva had me taking on
corporate sustainability jobs through
amazing friends who saw my diverse
experience and valued it and they sent
me to Africa to work with coffee growers
in Rwanda and Burundi to try to raise
their level of life and to be able to
grow better and surprisingly my ability
to be dropped anywhere in the world to
find my way across cultures and places
and figure my way around was actually an
asset for the first time in my life I
wasn’t being hammered down I was being
lifted up during our time in Geneva I
met my husband my precious wonderful
beautiful husband and he saw something
in me and my crazy experience and after
a whirlwind here we were married and he
always said to me trust your brain
Shanon when everyone else doubted me
when no one believed me he would always
come back to that trust your brain what
do you want to do what do you want to be
you have a moment of peace in your life
right now
what do you want to give to the world I
had always been ashamed that I hadn’t
completed my degree my first degree
because society still defines success as
higher education it’s not because I was
stupid or lazy it was because I followed
my dreams my passions and what I thought
I was right but I wanted to prove to
myself that I could so at the age of 33
I rien rolled in the local English
speaking University in Geneva
Switzerland this time to complete my
degree in psychology because my time in
the Middle East had gotten me interested
in what makes people fundamentally tick
how can people live side-by-side so
similar in yet so vastly different I was
the oldest one on campus it was a really
weird experience
but I didn’t care because I got a second
chance and I reveled in it through my
experience in psychology I came to see
how much I love to understand how the
brain works and the physical structures
and molecular processes that underlie
why we do what we do as humans and this
led me to neuroscience and this is when
everyone told me you’re out of your
freaking mind
you’re 34 you have no background in
science or biology at all and you think
you’re gonna take on neuroscience this
is a completely ridiculous notion no one
can do that but my husband
undaunted gave me the bungee cord to
jump and we decided to uproot our lives
and move between Geneva and London so
that I could pursue my masters at one of
the best universities in the world for
Neuroscience called University College
London and this is when I say UCL and
everybody go says UCLA and I’m like no
UCL because the British aren’t really
good at you know promoting themselves
but this university ranks up there with
MIT and Harvard and you can imagine how
difficult it was in my first few months
I cried silently many nights in our
apartment trying to read scientific
journals for the first time it was like
a totally new language for me it was
like learning Greek I’m sitting there
going what am i doing
and my colleagues must have thought that
I was a joke I’m sure I’m pretty sure I
know that that’s a fact
these guys are career scientists who
have spent their life doing this and my
presence was almost an insult to them
they didn’t know what to do with me but
there were professors and postdocs who
saw something in me once again and
pushed me one of those guys dr. Andrew
Bachelor and I hope he was watching he
taught me that science is not about
having the perfect result or having the
right pedigree but it was about learning
how to think through a problem and boy
did I know how to think through problems
and he also taught me to think not just
with rigor but with imagination and to
not judge myself by the standards of
convention but to just try again he was
somebody within the establishment who
saw me and gave me the anchor from which
to jump I graduated that year top three
in my class with distinction and that
was because of countless others it
wasn’t because of me it was because of
countless others that scaffolded me
throughout that year protecting my
differences allowing me to rise in this
next piece of my life that I wanted to
pursue I didn’t imagine I would ever do
my undergrad much less my masters or now
my PhD which was a lifelong dream that I
wanted to pursue but didn’t allow myself
to believe I could do and during that
year I met an American Harvard bred
professor named Jason real he is crazy
and he is unconventional and he is
brilliant
and I went to him with a project I
wanted to pursue and you have to
remember in scientific phd’s you don’t
present the project you want to do you
join a program and you do what they tell
you to do but he didn’t kick me out of
his office and say get the hell out of
here who do you think you are your CV is
not right you don’t have the right
background I need trained people to do
this no he took me at face value he
heard me and he said hey let’s go for it
and he and my second supervisor an
amazing mentor this guy who has really
brought me up in science Tom Hawkins
they both rode the wave with me which
has resulted in some incredible
discoveries like this one this is a
potentially new cell type that we found
we Co discovered with
lab in Germany in the brain of zebrafish
that we believe also exists in mammals
including humans and is likely involved
in clearing your brain and may have a
role in neuro mean ology you’re probably
working in your brain right now as we
speak some exciting things are happening
in our field and from our lab and watch
this space we’re really excited with
what’s to come but my point of being
here today is not to tell you how crazy
my life has been how exciting my life
has been but I came here today for you
to ask you the question who are you in
my story to illustrate the point what
comes to mind is my favorite movie of
all time a Steven Spielberg blockbuster
Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade to set
the scene Indiana Jones is this
incredible adventurer who is now sitting
with his father who’s been shot and he
has to save his life and the only thing
that can save his life
is this chalice this holy water in this
Holy Grail and he has to go through a
series of obstacles to be able to reach
that chalice and he’s running through
the caverns and suddenly he stops short
at this abyss and you see the stones
falling and you feel with him in the
moment where he sees the door on the
other side of that abyss and he says my
god there’s no way I can jump and make
that and just then you pan over to Sean
Connery who’s playing his father and he
closes his eyes and he says son you’ve
gotta believe you’ve got to have faith
and at that moment Indiana takes a step
out into the abyss and this bridge of
faith comes and meets his foot and
allows him to cross to the other side
some of you in the audience today are
going to be the faith walkers and you’re
gonna have to take the step out into the
abyss without ever knowing what’s going
to meet you but the other people in the
audience are gonna be the bridge of
faith that rises up to meet the others
so that they can cross into their next
iteration of what did whatever it is
that they’re called to be it takes two
sides to recognize
each other and see the spark in the
other I think we oversimplify it by
saying just do it you can do it if you
believe in it yes but it takes two
different kinds of people to make the
magic happen see being here in Greece
for just a few days I’ve already talked
to people who have told me that Greece
is going through a very deeply difficult
time with the economy and people are
having to take on second or third
careers often later in life and I can
imagine this is incredibly scary for
some of you but what I’m saying is
everybody in this this whole room is
going to have to come together and rise
up because necessity is the mother of
invention
don’t listen to the politicians don’t
listen to what the economy says you
rebuild your nation and new because
guess what this is the cradle of
civilization intellectual civilization
democracy came from this place and I
can’t wait to see what’s going to come
from all of you just take the step and
jump and look for the other people who
are that spark and grow them so that
they can do their thing life is a series
of what looked like ordinary twists and
turns that become extraordinary only in
hindsight when we look at the skins that
we have shed and what has emerged in its
place some day guys as Shannon is gonna
show up at your doorstep and come
knocking is your heart and your
intuition going to be ready for me thank
you [Applause]
with my maternal American grandfather a
colonel in the US Army before a period
in his career was stationed in Japan
many years after World War two on one
side and my paternal American sorry my
paternal Japanese grandmother who lived
through and survived the Tokyo bombings
that flattened her city to devastation
on the other and when I mean devastated
I mean her family her friends everything
gone decades later I was born to their
respective children an American mother
and a Japanese father and much to the
surprise of the Japanese doctors I was
born looking like this I can’t imagine
how hard it must have been for my
grandmother to look into the blue eyes
of her grandchild and see the reflection
of what used to be the enemy and yet for
a moment history stood still for her and
all that had been was born anew in this
face my face both Japanese and American
a face she loved without conviction with
with completely full abandon because
some things in this life rise above even
give me a second I was born already
going against the grain into an
incredibly conformist culture where than
saying the nail that sticks up gets
hammered down is inherently ingrained
within the psyche of the culture and I
heard that you Greeks have that as well
in your culture this is a picture of me
in central Tokyo with my Japanese
neighbor friend clearly I’m the nail
that sticks out but I was also born to
an incredibly loving and smart mother
who knew what it took to survive and fit
in and she did everything she could
working so hard to make sure that every
child every family knew exactly who I
was before I ever stepped foot into
school inviting them over offering cake
and ice cream to the older kids all to
assure that they would look out for me
and I wouldn’t be bullied and to the
credit of my courageous mother and those
in my small neighborhood I was accepted
I was protected there I say it I was
loved though I was the nail that stuck
out it went against every norm of
society this white child and her white
mother the gaijin as they called us and
the Japanese father living amongst them
in the local way in the local language
it took me years to be able to look back
and see acceptance where I only
initially saw the failings and flaws as
a child but now in this moment from my
vantage point in midlife I can look back
and I can see the remarkable acceptance
I was given by those who chose to look
past that strict norms of society and
see me and because of this because of
them I am just as Japanese as I am
American no matter what I look like on
the outside and I love both my countries
deep
because it runs in my blood and in my
soul at the age of seven my parents told
me we have to move to the United States
and this time I look like everyone else
on the outside but I had a funny accent
I sounded like some weird dubbed over a
movie if you thought I was putting it on
and I had to attend English as a second
language course and I was that weird kid
that considered squid guts and curry
rice to be an exciting meal instead of
the typically American hamburgers and
hotdogs I was not the all-american girl
I have spent my life trying to find my
place in the world as a third culture
kid trying to find prescribed acceptance
that would offer me a defined place in a
defined role I have lived in more places
than I can count in my lifetime
all took place is so culturally
different even within the boundaries of
the United States places like Seattle
Washington that displayed beautiful
multi ethnic communities without a
second thought to places in the American
South like North Carolina where deep
historical racial divides still strongly
remain and I have learned how to survive
and adapt in each new place but I still
longed for identity for some societally
accepted purpose never knowing what that
really was in my 20s I decided to take
on archaeology for my undergraduate
studies and that took me to Jerusalem
for a year to study Second Temple period
history and it was then during the
second uprising of violence called the
Intifada where I experienced the painful
clash between Israelis and Palestinians
for the first time and at that point I
knew I couldn’t go back to the United
States and live a normal life but I had
to give up my degree move back to the
region and help those in any way I could
much of the surprised and complete freak
out of my parents I have to say
I spent nearly a decade in the region
trying to find my place in a region
where all the cultures and religions are
so vastly different from my own trying
to immerse myself fully never accepting
that it would not be possible I worked
in with victims of terror in policy
analysis and in conflict management but
I’m not going to talk more about my time
there because I’ve long since moved on
from the ten years I spent crossing
borders witnessing the suffering trying
to make sense of a conflict for myself
and for others I’ve learned with age and
experience that some stories conflicts
and histories run so deep and so
personal no one from the outside can
solve it or change it it has to begin
so here I am in my 30s having given up
my degree having moved to a region of
conflict having taken on a unique
experience that I called a career for a
decade and now it was all coming to an
end I had no idea where did how to
change course where to go what to do and
I remember sitting on the floor in a
mine Jordan in my friend’s apartment in
the dark one night with a single candle
lit at the greatest low of my life
feeling like there was no way out I was
up against a wall I was out of Hope I
was out of money I was out of ideas
my friend seeing my state of need said
you know what why don’t I give you a
ticket to Geneva Switzerland where I
live so you can rest
think and get your feet back under you I
remember flying out of Amman seeing the
ground getting smaller and smaller
beneath me and crying from fear knowing
everything I had built for a decade was
now totally gone and I know some of you
in this audience today know what that
feels like where you put your blood
sweat and tears into something and it
crumbles beneath you in a second
gone
I had to pivot quickly I had no choice
my time in Geneva had me taking on
corporate sustainability jobs through
amazing friends who saw my diverse
experience and valued it and they sent
me to Africa to work with coffee growers
in Rwanda and Burundi to try to raise
their level of life and to be able to
grow better and surprisingly my ability
to be dropped anywhere in the world to
find my way across cultures and places
and figure my way around was actually an
asset for the first time in my life I
wasn’t being hammered down I was being
lifted up during our time in Geneva I
met my husband my precious wonderful
beautiful husband and he saw something
in me and my crazy experience and after
a whirlwind here we were married and he
always said to me trust your brain
Shanon when everyone else doubted me
when no one believed me he would always
come back to that trust your brain what
do you want to do what do you want to be
you have a moment of peace in your life
right now
what do you want to give to the world I
had always been ashamed that I hadn’t
completed my degree my first degree
because society still defines success as
higher education it’s not because I was
stupid or lazy it was because I followed
my dreams my passions and what I thought
I was right but I wanted to prove to
myself that I could so at the age of 33
I rien rolled in the local English
speaking University in Geneva
Switzerland this time to complete my
degree in psychology because my time in
the Middle East had gotten me interested
in what makes people fundamentally tick
how can people live side-by-side so
similar in yet so vastly different I was
the oldest one on campus it was a really
weird experience
but I didn’t care because I got a second
chance and I reveled in it through my
experience in psychology I came to see
how much I love to understand how the
brain works and the physical structures
and molecular processes that underlie
why we do what we do as humans and this
led me to neuroscience and this is when
everyone told me you’re out of your
freaking mind
you’re 34 you have no background in
science or biology at all and you think
you’re gonna take on neuroscience this
is a completely ridiculous notion no one
can do that but my husband
undaunted gave me the bungee cord to
jump and we decided to uproot our lives
and move between Geneva and London so
that I could pursue my masters at one of
the best universities in the world for
Neuroscience called University College
London and this is when I say UCL and
everybody go says UCLA and I’m like no
UCL because the British aren’t really
good at you know promoting themselves
but this university ranks up there with
MIT and Harvard and you can imagine how
difficult it was in my first few months
I cried silently many nights in our
apartment trying to read scientific
journals for the first time it was like
a totally new language for me it was
like learning Greek I’m sitting there
going what am i doing
and my colleagues must have thought that
I was a joke I’m sure I’m pretty sure I
know that that’s a fact
these guys are career scientists who
have spent their life doing this and my
presence was almost an insult to them
they didn’t know what to do with me but
there were professors and postdocs who
saw something in me once again and
pushed me one of those guys dr. Andrew
Bachelor and I hope he was watching he
taught me that science is not about
having the perfect result or having the
right pedigree but it was about learning
how to think through a problem and boy
did I know how to think through problems
and he also taught me to think not just
with rigor but with imagination and to
not judge myself by the standards of
convention but to just try again he was
somebody within the establishment who
saw me and gave me the anchor from which
to jump I graduated that year top three
in my class with distinction and that
was because of countless others it
wasn’t because of me it was because of
countless others that scaffolded me
throughout that year protecting my
differences allowing me to rise in this
next piece of my life that I wanted to
pursue I didn’t imagine I would ever do
my undergrad much less my masters or now
my PhD which was a lifelong dream that I
wanted to pursue but didn’t allow myself
to believe I could do and during that
year I met an American Harvard bred
professor named Jason real he is crazy
and he is unconventional and he is
brilliant
and I went to him with a project I
wanted to pursue and you have to
remember in scientific phd’s you don’t
present the project you want to do you
join a program and you do what they tell
you to do but he didn’t kick me out of
his office and say get the hell out of
here who do you think you are your CV is
not right you don’t have the right
background I need trained people to do
this no he took me at face value he
heard me and he said hey let’s go for it
and he and my second supervisor an
amazing mentor this guy who has really
brought me up in science Tom Hawkins
they both rode the wave with me which
has resulted in some incredible
discoveries like this one this is a
potentially new cell type that we found
we Co discovered with
lab in Germany in the brain of zebrafish
that we believe also exists in mammals
including humans and is likely involved
in clearing your brain and may have a
role in neuro mean ology you’re probably
working in your brain right now as we
speak some exciting things are happening
in our field and from our lab and watch
this space we’re really excited with
what’s to come but my point of being
here today is not to tell you how crazy
my life has been how exciting my life
has been but I came here today for you
to ask you the question who are you in
my story to illustrate the point what
comes to mind is my favorite movie of
all time a Steven Spielberg blockbuster
Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade to set
the scene Indiana Jones is this
incredible adventurer who is now sitting
with his father who’s been shot and he
has to save his life and the only thing
that can save his life
is this chalice this holy water in this
Holy Grail and he has to go through a
series of obstacles to be able to reach
that chalice and he’s running through
the caverns and suddenly he stops short
at this abyss and you see the stones
falling and you feel with him in the
moment where he sees the door on the
other side of that abyss and he says my
god there’s no way I can jump and make
that and just then you pan over to Sean
Connery who’s playing his father and he
closes his eyes and he says son you’ve
gotta believe you’ve got to have faith
and at that moment Indiana takes a step
out into the abyss and this bridge of
faith comes and meets his foot and
allows him to cross to the other side
some of you in the audience today are
going to be the faith walkers and you’re
gonna have to take the step out into the
abyss without ever knowing what’s going
to meet you but the other people in the
audience are gonna be the bridge of
faith that rises up to meet the others
so that they can cross into their next
iteration of what did whatever it is
that they’re called to be it takes two
sides to recognize
each other and see the spark in the
other I think we oversimplify it by
saying just do it you can do it if you
believe in it yes but it takes two
different kinds of people to make the
magic happen see being here in Greece
for just a few days I’ve already talked
to people who have told me that Greece
is going through a very deeply difficult
time with the economy and people are
having to take on second or third
careers often later in life and I can
imagine this is incredibly scary for
some of you but what I’m saying is
everybody in this this whole room is
going to have to come together and rise
up because necessity is the mother of
invention
don’t listen to the politicians don’t
listen to what the economy says you
rebuild your nation and new because
guess what this is the cradle of
civilization intellectual civilization
democracy came from this place and I
can’t wait to see what’s going to come
from all of you just take the step and
jump and look for the other people who
are that spark and grow them so that
they can do their thing life is a series
of what looked like ordinary twists and
turns that become extraordinary only in
hindsight when we look at the skins that
we have shed and what has emerged in its
place some day guys as Shannon is gonna
show up at your doorstep and come
knocking is your heart and your
intuition going to be ready for me thank
you [Applause]
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