One of the themes in my writing for young readers has been that a scientist’s achievements flow from the richness of his or her life, that s/he is more than his/her discoveries. So I share this obituary of Jim Elliot, who was planetary astronomer Heidi Hammel’s mentor. I never met him, but his kindness was apparent through e-mails exchanged during and after my writing of Heidi’s biography in the Women’s Adventures in Science series.
Other books where I address that theme are
To the Young Scientist: Reflections on Doing and Living Science (Franklin Watts, 1997)
and
Dr. Fred’s Weather Watch: Create and Run Your Own Weather Station (McGraw-Hill, 2000), which was based on a state second-prize-winning science fair project by collaborator J. Marshall Shepherd, Ph.D.
