OB: Hi Dr. Mintzer! Can you please tell us a little about your personal history?
EM: I didn’t get here by most people’s routes. When I first went to college, I went to Stonybrook [University]. It was a lot of fun…I dropped out after two years, with about eight credits, I think. I was majoring in Poli-Sci. It was fun; I was an RA, it was like a resort. But eventually they tell you that if you’re not taking classes, you really can’t stay. So I went home, and worked for my family business, where we made leather briefcases. I was a craftsman. I grew up in Rosedale, Queens, and our business was in Queens. I met my wife, we got married, we moved our family there, and I worked for twelve years. [A]nyway, I started to hate it… because working for family isn’t that much fun. And I went back to school…eight years later…and then I just kept going until I got a PhD.
OB: You went back to Stonybrook?
EM: No, I went back to Queensborough [Community College], and I had to take remedial math…and it was at night, so there were no credits for it, and I was paying for it!
OB: We were actually going to ask if you really loved chemistry in high school…
EM: No, I liked science when I was a little kid, but that was it.
OB: At that point, you must have known that you wanted to do science, and that you were going to need remedial math classes…?
EM: We went through…a difficult pregnancy, our second pregnancy, and in the course of that… [my wife] had a really good Ob-Gyn, like an old-school physician, and … this doctor was really inspirational. I thought, “This is a guy who can make you feel better when the outcome is – you can’t change the outcome, physicians often can’t change an outcome – yet, just his presence meant something. That’s a physician.” So I entertained the idea [of studying medicine].
OB: Because of this particular doctor?
EM: [Yes.] So I took a math, a second math, chemistry…bio. Eventually I transferred to Queens [College]. I found that school is easy– it’s just not that hard – if you do the work…we didn’t grow up in a disciplined environment, in the Orthodox environment. We are all about the same intelligence. Everybody is. The Einsteins – there are a couple of them…but we’re all about the same. It’s all about how you do the work. And I liked chemistry…eventually, it began to dawn on me that [a career in medicine was] not feasible… I really wasn’t qualified to do much after making leather goods. I hated school – I hated it. That’s why I didn’t go. I did well in elementary school. They had a program, actually, in the City – IGC…Intellectually Gifted Children. Do you know how screwed up this is? [I was] a year younger when I went to high school…you’re just not ready for it as a little kid! I don’t know what they thought I should skip a grade for. Then the natural progression– after high school you gotta go to college.
OB: You were in Queens College, you had started taking chemistries; you were doing well, and then what?
EM: I got my PhD through the City University of New York. I went there and did my research at Queens [College], I did my research with a prominent professor at Queens, who Dr. Blau also worked for…it was so weird when I interviewed here, and I asked him to write me a letter because he’s so ethical, that he didn’t even tell me, “oh, I know the head of the department”…[Dr. Blau] told me. So the point is, someone who hates school ends up in a place like this [laughs]. I have these Organic exams to grade, and there’s just a total freak-out after the exam.
OB: So you’re saying that your grade in Organic doesn’t really matter?
EM: I’m saying that. It matters to your GPA somewhat; it doesn’t matter to who you’re gonna be and what you’re gonna do for a living. It shouldn’t matter. I think you can’t have the attitude I had in Stonybrook and think you’re going to get into medical school. I say this for the students around here, who come in with 98 averages from high school… One four-credit class is not going to change your GPA, unless it’s 4.0! I’d rather have a physician who didn’t get a 4.0, because that’s kind of weird!
OB: Is there any advice you have to students to combine studying with other activities?
EM: You all know how to achieve academically a lot better than I do. You have the discipline, the study habits. You come here with them. So there’s nothing I can teach you about that. This is what I tell students who come here after the exam with their crying and their neurosis, “If you can look yourself in the mirror and say, ‘I studied as hard as I could, and this is my grade,’ then you move on with your life.” I understand that there are a different set of pressures on you all, but you have to step back… if you didn’t become a physician, it’s because you didn’t become a physician. It’s not because of one test or one course even. You wanna become a physician so badly, go to Mexico, go to the Islands! “But I wanna go to Einstein to become a physician.” Ah, so now you’re narrowing it down a little bit. “I want to go this year to Einstein.” That might not happen.
OB: You do a lot of interesting research, how do you decide what you would like to study?
EM: It’s half serendipity and half design. Usually it’s through networking. Through networking I met somebody, and he asked, “what are you doing lately?” “I’m studying this drug and it interacts with lipids”…and that was that. It’s all on a very informal and friendly basis.
OB: What do you think of the furloughs that are imminent at this institution?
EM: That’s a rumor. I’ve never heard of it. Take it as if you were writing your science paper – if you can cite it, then you can trust it. Unless I hear…“guess what, Evan – take the next five days off,” then I’ll know it’s true.
OB: [What kind of encouragement do you have] [f]or students, in terms of our concerns…being offered the best quality education?
EM: If you want to put it from a business model, which it’s not, is we make the widgets– your education [is] the widgets…so furloughing is kind of stupid, because that you’ll feel. If they have problems up there…you should not feel that… …that’s self-defeating.
OB: In terms of working at this institution, how did that happen?
EM: I worked at Queens [College] because I was a student there. I worked as an EMT because I had to make a living…and I sort of started to drift away from my work. I was ABD (all but dissertation)… and I said, “what am I doing? I put in a lot of effort to get here,”… I quit the job and went to my PI and said, “let’s just defend the thing,”…so I started looking for jobs and the first one that opened up was in Georgia, so my wife and I decided to sell the house… and I hated it from the day I got there. We had this beautiful house on an acre of land – I’m from Queens, I didn’t know what an acre looked like… Very soon after being there, I started thinking about getting out. I applied to a bunch of jobs, I interviewed in West Virginia– if you could take a step down from rural Georgia, it’s West Virginia! Anyway, I didn’t get that, but this one came up, I interviewed for this one…it was coming home… and karma happens and I came up here.
OB: Was it intimidating for you to be part of an [almost] all female chemistry staff?
EM: No. We have the best synced – personality-wise – department in this place, no question. There’s absolutely zero tension. This department is really special.
OB: What is your favorite thing about your job? The students?
EM: Oh, totally. It’s teaching, it’s seeing the… “I get it moment.” I see thirty faces, you see one, and not everyone gets it at the same point, but there’s some point every semester that somebody gets it, and it’s very satisfying. I am a better teacher than I am a researcher. For me, it’s more teaching how to do research, how to be ethical and to ask questions. Those are life skills.
OB: How many years have you been here? Do former students visit?
EM: This is my sixth. I get a lot of emails from – I probably told you this to sell the course – medical students in their first year who just finished their Biochemistry [course]…“oh, you really set us up, Biochemistry we walk through,” and everyone else was working very, very hard.