The thing that astonished me was how .. fidgety he was. Its like he couldn’t sit still for longer than five seconds. His leg was shaking half the time; most of the time he leaned in such a way that two of his chair legs were off the ground; and he repeatedly got up to walk to his bookshelf (which was horribly disorganized, mind you) to attempt to find something (and fail). This is not to say that he was ultimately very rude to me, but I think it gives a real sense of the person inside the professor.
The guy is young. He’s not forty yet (and I believe he received tenure back when he was like 34 or 35). I had always known that he was young, but I never realized just how much so until I read that article above and when, on the day of the final, I see this guy who’s wearing horribly baggy pants and a shirt and looks like a hobo/college student cramming for finals walk in — and I’m like, who the heck is this? Harvard kids don’t get that scrubby, but when I looked more closely, I noticed that it was frickin’ Brenner!
Anyways, we had a very interesting discussion where he suggested some courses to me, and pointed out to me that the new major they just created (Chemical and Physical Biology) was geared towards people of my interests (bad timing for me, I guess) but ultimately bemoaned how there was a lack of courses and material for people like me. I was stunned at how knowledgeable this guy was. I mean, yes, he’s Harvard faculty, he can’t be retarded. But, its always astonished me how much Harvard professors know — they’re not only experts in their own field, if there’s something they’re interested in, they know more than probably the average undergraduate majoring in that field. Brenner knew like everyone in the MCB department (could be because they’re mostly famous) and was wel versed in some of the details of cell cycle signaling and gene expression. And he was able to relate it all back to mathematics. Quite a feat I think.