Digital Collections

Oral history interview with Beverly M. Emerson

  • 1992-Dec-16
  • 1992-Dec-18
  • 1992-Dec-21
  • 1993-Jan-28

Beverly M. Emerson was born in Eugene, Oregon, and spent much of her childhood there. She was the only child of her two parents, but her father had three children by a previous marriage. Her parents divorced when she was young, and her mother began travelling, settling in San Francisco for a month or two at a time and then returning to Eugene. Beverly missed a great deal of school, but she educated herself by reading. Although she herself had not finished high school, Beverly’s mother emphasized to Beverly the importance of college education, and insisted that the University of Oregon was not good enough for Beverly. Somehow able to support them both, Beverly’s mother sent Beverly to La Châtelainie Institute in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, for a year. Beverly’s early school experiences did not instill academic diligence, and Beverly’s grades were only average.

Fortunately, her test scores were good, and she matriculated into the University of California, San Diego, where at last she discovered a love of learning, especially in science. During college Beverly spent a year studying at St. Andrews in Scotland, and when she came back her academic ambitions were well established. She worked in Donald Helinski’s and Peter Geiduschek’s labs; the latter became her mentor and template for a scientist, and she continues to have a professional relationship with him still. She admired him so much that when she graduated she spent a year working as a technician in Geiduschek’s lab.

Deciding to attend graduate school at Washington University in St. Louis, Beverly began working in Robert Roeder’s lab. Her project caused her some difficulties she could not solve until a guest speaker, Shirley Tilghman, pointed out something to her. When she finished her PhD, she decided to accept a postdoc in Gary Felsenfeld’s lab at the National Institutes of Health; there she began the transcription research that she has continued ever since. Although she began her current work in Felsenfeld’s lab, that work has branched off from his area; she is concentrating on ß-globin and chromatin. Beverly has her own lab now at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences. She foresees herself continuing this same work until the end of her career, quite possibly at the Salk.

In addition to explaining her work, Beverly discussed protein purification, gene cloning, gene transcription, transcription factors, TATA boxes, chromatin structure, the construction of an in vitro transcription system, the locus control region, the Salk Institute, her Frog Room, and the status of women in scientific research.

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Emerson_BM_0422_SUPPL.pdf