Before we begin the lecture, I'd like to tell you a little bit about myself. I was born in Iran, and moved to the United States with my family when I was three. My father was a doctor, and my mother was a teacher. I have two older brothers and a younger sister. I grew up in Maryland, but we moved to Chicago when I was 12. I've been interested in science my whole life, so I was ecstatic to receive a scholarship here at Northwestern University to study biology. After earning my bachelor's degree, I got a master's at Stanford. I stayed on there as a researcher for about six years before moving back to Illinois and joining Bio-Tech. I was with Bio-Tech for 10 years before leaving last year to start my own research company, GreenEarth. We employ six full-time researchers, and in the past year we've made a couple of exciting new discoveries, which I'm going to tell you about in just a minute. First, though, I just want to thank the Northwestern president, John Roche, and the faculty of the biology department for inviting me back to speak to you today. It's an exciting moment, and I'm honored.
