ABSTRACT
I've always thought of academic training in terms of family structures and accordingly, I consider Jean to be my academic “mom.” However, I had to work hard and be very creative to convince Jean to adopt me. When I first met Jean, I was formally enrolled as a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, but I was visiting at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) for the year. At that time Jean graciously allowed me to sit in on her lab meetings but told me that she was pretty busy and probably would not have time to work with me on any research projects. As the year progressed, I enjoyed talking with Jean so much that I came up with the following idea—I reminded Jean that George, her husband, worked with a graduate student named Jan Rabinowitz (no relation) and that they published articles together. I told Jean that if we conducted a study together and published it, there would be multiple articles by Mandler and Rabinowitz, with four different authors. Jean liked the idea so much that we started collaborating. I ended up transferring to UCSD and Jean became my graduate advisor. Our article was published (Rabinowitz & Mandler, 1983) and confusion reigns.
