Gerty Cori Ward grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. Camping was a family tradition, and she spent summers canoe tripping through Algonquin Park in Ontario, Canada. She comes from a family with a strong scientific tradition (her grandparents shared the 1947 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on the biochemistry of carbohydrates), but after graduation from Vassar College with a degree in Economics, she worked in the finance industry. After three years the call of destiny was simply too strong, so she went back to school and earned a Ph.D. in molecular genetics from North Carolina State University. As an adult, after wearing many hats, she became a science teacher to strengthen the connection between scientists in the field and students in the classroom. Ms. Ward now happily teaches middle school science at Durham Academy in Durham, North Carolina. Her classroom motto is, "when in doubt, doubt!" and she hopes to empower her students to look critically at the scientific claims that shape our world.