Five Questions With…
Gregory Bean is a lab technician in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology. He’s been in his current position for four years, but he’s worked at the university in many capacities since enrolling as an undergraduate in 1994.
1. Describe your job. I do research, studying the biochemical properties of bacterial proteins and how they interact with each other. I’m in a lab coat and latex gloves all day doing experiments, which I really enjoy.
2. What made you want to work at UW–Madison? What has made you want to continue working here? I was trained as a researcher, and the UW is widely known as one of the premier research universities in the country. There’s a lot of cutting-edge stuff going on here, and it’s good to be a part of that. Working at an academic institution appealed to me more than a private sector job because here you are more free to do “pure” research activities. The research isn’t totally directed at creating some product that you can sell to someone.
3. What is your favorite memory of the university? My favorite memories are probably going to Badger hockey games, both at the old Coliseum and now at the Kohl Center — especially when they were wins against either Minnesota or North Dakota. My favorite game was at the Resch Center in Green Bay last spring, however — the triple-OT win against Cornell. I wish I could have made it to the Frozen Four in Milwaukee, but it didn’t happen.
4. What has surprised you most or challenged you most as you have continued your career at UW–Madison? My work is a new challenge every day. Research is really like that; you can get some weird result to an experiment, and then spend a lot of time trying to figure out what happened. There’s a lot of problem-solving involved, trying to think of new and creative ways to answer a question. It can sometimes be discouraging because a lot of experiments fail, and you can end up doing things over again many times so it can be repetitive. But it is worth it when an experiment works and you get a novel result.
5. If you could ask anyone on campus any question, what would it be? First, I would ask the director of Transportation Services for a parking spot in the lot outside of my building, for free! Then I would ask whoever is in charge of campus construction when they are going to build us an underground tunnel system like they have at Minnesota. I’m a lifelong Wisconsinite, but I hate the cold, snow and ice in the winter. My life would be much more enjoyable from December until March if I could get around campus in a warm underground tunnel instead of having to go outside.