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Surprising
Success
All
this success is still somewhat surprising to Diamond whose
career aspiration - as listed in her high school yearbook-
was to be a homemaker and mother.
Traditional
parents to their only child, Diamond's mother and father were
naturally pleased with their daughter's high marks in school.
But they had one request, according to Diamond. "Let the boys
do better."
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"Maybe we might be able to pick up on some differences
in infancy," she says. "Maybe you could head things off
so they never develop full blown ADHD."
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"What
I took away from this was that I was just doing this because
I enjoyed it," Diamond recalls. "What a wonderful attitude
to have towards school and towards work. To do it because
you enjoy it."
But
her work is not the only arena in which Diamond expends her
copious energy. She is married to a geneticist and is a devoted
step-mother of three. Balancing her work and family life has
not always been easy.
"You
feel torn," she says. "No matter how much time you spend at
work, you feel like you should spend more, and no matter how
much time you spend at home, you feel like you should spend
more. I think you have to just say that you're going to make
this time, because you never have enough time to do all the
things you want to do."
And
there are a lot of things Diamond wants to do. Traditional
dancing is one of them. Diamond has organized dances at professional
conferences as well as danced her way up down both coasts
of America and across much of Europe.
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"I do basic research. I never thought I would
affect anybody's life."
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"I
was a member of a dance troupe that went to the Soviet Union
in 1990, and I led a dance troupe to Czechoslovakia in '92,"
she says. "Now, shortly after the spring of 90 the Soviet
Union ceased to exist. And we left Czechoslovakia the day
of the June elections that ended in the country's dissolution.
So clearly it's not a good idea for me to come to your country
to dance. As a scientist, I think it's safe, but not as a
dancer."
But
Diamond's real global impact, of course, has more to do with
her research than with her recreation. The data that stems
from her elegant- often startlingly simple- experiments will
continue to make a difference in the way children are treated,
understood and educated the world over. For this, Diamond
is extremely grateful.
"To
see my work have practical applications actually affect medical
practice and public health policy was completely a surprise,"
she muses. "I do basic research. I never thought I would affect
anybody's life. And then, to see other studies come out afterwards
to show that [the PKU research] had improved peoples' lives.
Kids lives were actually better. That was just incredible."
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