Jon was director of the ICN when I was a graduate student there. I never worked with him directly; his wife, Nilli Lavie, was my PhD advisor and they were always very careful to keep their personal and professional worlds separate. But we did interact. What set Jon apart was the way he remained enthusiastically involved in the fine details of research, in a way that is unusual at that level of seniority. It wasn’t just that he’d ask how my research was going – which he did every now and then – but that he was happy to delve into the details of specific experiments with anyone, regardless of his or her place in the academic pecking order.
The first time I encountered this was one Friday afternoon in my second year, after project presentations (a weekly forum in which new research ideas are presented for approval and feedback). Someone from Jon’s group had presented a new project, and I’d asked a question. Later that day Jon showed up in my office and said, “That was an interesting question, can we discuss it?” I wasn’t feeling very well that day, and although I did vaguely remember asking something I had no recollection of what it was, or even what the project was about. I’m fairly certain the thinking underlying my question hadn’t been anywhere near as clever as Jon thought it had been. I stammered through the next twenty minutes, very aware, when Jon left, that he probably hadn’t gotten what he’d come for. But he gave people a lot of credit, and was back in my office for a similar purpose two weeks later, giving me a chance to redeem myself for which I was very grateful.
