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When the Goeddel Family Technology Sandbox opens on the UC San Diego campus on August 29, the state-of-the-art facility will immediately establish itself as a unique, world-class resource for science, education and training. Home to the finest scientific equipment, the Technology Sandbox is also the hub of partnerships with the life sciences industry, including Thermo Fisher Scientific and Nikon Instruments.
The first faculty member to lead the new facility came to UC San Diego with an extraordinary background: Yuri Manners, an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, came to the Godel Family Technology Sandbox on a twisty road filled with hardships, including bullying, social neglect and a hearing impairment that led to educational obstacles. Now he's reversed that storyline: It's his turn to invite others to play with science's most advanced “toys” in the sandbox.
Did you always know you were going to be a scientist?
I had no idea. I was born with severe-to-profound hearing loss. My family didn't know I had a hearing impairment until I was almost two years old because hearing screenings for newborns weren't routinely done at the time. Growing up, I was terrified of being considered “abnormal” because of my disability and did everything I could to deny it. I often couldn't understand what was being said in conversations and in the classroom, which led to many of my classmates making fun of me and assuming I was less intelligent. I never felt like I fit in. No one asked me to play with them and I was often bullied because I was very different from most of my classmates – I wore a hearing aid, had an unusual name, and my skin was much darker than most of my classmates.
