Serendipity and purpose

Serendipity and purpose.

As a medical oncologist-researcher, I am often asked ‘How (or why) did you go into cancer?’ and ‘Isn’t it a depressing field?’ The answer to the second question is a resounding ‘no’, and this brief profile charts my path to answer the first question. Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, I am the daughter of two geologists, so ours was a scientific family. From an early age, my brother, sister a...

Deconstructing serendipity: focus, purpose, and authorship in lunch buddy mentoring.

Lunch buddy mentoring is a particular kind of school-based mentoring program: college student mentors meet twice weekly during school lunch with mentees, and a new mentor is provided each semester. The program is designed to benefit elementary school children who are highly aggressive or chronically bullied. Novel to lunch buddy mentoring is a deemphasis on the strength and length of the relati...

Science and serendipity.

Good science demands independent replication of new ideas and results and abandonment of accepted theories in light of more reliable evidence. Failure to comply leads to damaging bad science, as with the falsely claimed association between measles, mumps and rubella vaccination and autism. Progress of good science also often requires serendipity, 'making discoveries by accident and sagacity of ...

Serendipity, Generosity, and Inspiration

The serendipity shuffle

Recently, listening to music in shuffle mode has gained a strong following. Analysis of online data about the ‘shuffle experience’ reveals a range of rich and unusual user-experiences one in particular is Serendipity. Although serendipity is often imbued with ‘magic’ or regarded as a product of chance and luck, its effects can be inspirational and transformative. To date, little has been done t...