By Maureen Rouhi
Last night, I enjoyed a welcome respite from the hustle and bustle of symposium sessions and booth hopping at the exposition. For one-and-a-half hours at the Ralston Room of the Palace Hotel, I and many other meeting attendees simply immersed ourselves in music, piano solos by Victoria Bragin and chamber music from the Caltech Chamber Music Ensemble. The evening offered us a facet of the lives of chemists that is rarely on display.
Bragin retired as a chemistry professor from Pasadena City College in 2002. Her professional career was devoted to chemical education, particularly the development of discovery-based materials to help explain chemistry concepts. Music obviously is central to her life; in 2002, she won the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs.