ABSTRACT
My research on culture and creativity is, in large part, Marilynn’s legacy. Although this particular line of research was not among our many enjoyable collaborations, I may never have stumbled onto it without her expert guidance. For me in particular, two lessons were extremely important. First, Marilynn encouraged her students to work on what they were passionate about. I remember going to her with my first original research idea, one that was not yet fully formed or particularly profound, and not something that was in one of her main research areas. But her response was telling. She said something like, “Will, you don’t need my permission to work on something. If it’s what you care about, then that’s what you should be working on.” These were powerful words for a first-year graduate student to receive from one of the titans of our field, and I remember being filled with awe and gratitude for her response. Of course (and this will be of absolutely no surprise to anyone who knows her), she then started listing all the articles and book chapters I needed to read, the breadth and depth of which was amazing to see being generated spontaneously and in an area outside of her typical intellectual purview. So lesson number two: read a lot and read broadly. There were many other lessons of course-how to design methodologically sound studies, how to build compelling research programs, how to work your butt off-but for me at least, I found that being passionate about your topic and being well read were almost necessary preconditions for me to be able to do good research.
