Dr. Ken Sandhage Talks About His Life--
and Some Very Tiny Friends
August 15 2005
Kenneth Sandhage
B. Mifflin Hood Professor
Materials Science and Engineering
Where did you grow up, and what was your childhood like?
Where did you grow up, and what was your childhood like? Your high school chemistry teacher was a particularly positive influence on you. Tell us about this. What was your undergraduate experience like? How have your varied life experiences helped you? How did you get into your current field of research? How might diatoms impact our daily lives? Do you have any advice for students out there?
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Ken: I grew up in the midwest in a town called Kokomo, Indiana, which is about fifty miles north of Indianapolis. At the time it was a population of around 30,000, something like that. We actually lived a little bit outside of town in a suburb not incorporated at that time in Kokomo. So pretty much grew up surrounded by cornfields, and so as a result got to know my neighbors fairly well, neighborhood kids, we'd hang out and kinda do things on our own.

(Q: What did you guys do?)

Sports, like most kids. We liked baseball, basketball, football, so we'd have pick-up games after school, just walk around the neighborhood, get enough kids together, and have a game. I was fortunate in that I have a fairly big family, I have four other brothers, and we're all within a span of about five years and so when we were old enough we could have our own team or subteam anyway, and so it wasn't very hard to get pick up games of basketball or baseball or football like I was saying.