Carol Lovatt

I have lived in Riverside, CA since 1980. My family moved out of Sharon in the mid-70's and except for a quick drive through and lunch this summer, I have not been back to Sharon since then. I heard about any reunions, so I never attended any. It would be nice to see everyone again.

I am a professor of plant physiology at the University of California-Riverside. Relevant facts can be obtained at the web address http://cnas.ucr.edu/~bps/lovatt.html. I always wanted to be a scientist and here I am. It was an opportunity that came later rather than earlier but I love it. My "job" probably occupies more of my life than it should, but to me it is my hobby as well. Now that my children are grown, I can treat myself to a hobby. I am fortunate that my position is 80% research and only 20% teaching so I only teach half (the plant half) of a large intro Biology course each spring quarter (but I won't be doing that for the next three years) and my graduate course one quarter every other year (that I have to do this winter). It is not very much teaching and I still enjoy it. I enjoy running effective committees, but committee work is really what gets me bogged down. I like writing grants and papers, too, but I feel like a secretary much of the time. My "science" is restricted to creative thinking rather than a lot of hands work. Hence, I have a large lab. of graduate students, postdocs, visiting scientists, and technicians. I came out to UC-Riverside in 1980 to do a postdoc but got a faculty position 2 months later and have been here ever since.

My son Jerry is 33. Jerry is a CPA, with an MS in Tax, and is a Senior manager for KPMG-Peat Marwick in San Jose, CA. My daughter Jennifer is 30. She is married to a super guy, Keith, and they have a little boy Alec, 6-years-old. Jennifer is a Dental Hygienist, Keith is a supervisor for a large construction company out here, they live in Riverside about 15 minutes from me, which is great cause I can see my grandson all the time.