Cecily Cannan Selby '46 is a good deal wiser than most resident tutors--as most grandmothers of five are.

With lively, dancing eyes peering behind frameless glasses, Shelby is equally at ease discussing the philosophy of science or chatting about the vision of large corporate firms with residents of Leverett House's C-entry.

"I am very happy to be writing and thinking about science, and coming back to Harvard is wonderful because I'll be with young people who are also writing and thinking," she says.

A graduate of Radcliffe, her educational background is steeped in the hard sciences. In the 51 years since her graduation, however, her professional path has led her to serve on the boards of directors of major corporations including RCA, General Electric and Avon.

Those experiences make her time at Harvard all the more important.

"Too many of us at this age sit on boards and commissions to talk about what to do with our youth without much direct contact with them," Selby says.

Selby maintains a busy schedule between seeing students and conducting policy research. However, she says her real passion is the time she spends at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, America's largest private organization dedicated to marine science and engineering.

With enthusiasm in her British-accented voice and a youthful twinkle in her eyes, Selby speaks passionately about the institute's newly commissioned ship (all 282 feet) and the research voyages it would take around the world--to be conducted on 4,000 square feet of lab space.

Selby went aboard yesterday, heading for New York City, where her three sons live.

Selby is the only daughter of a British physicist who immigrated to the United States during the "brain drain" of the 1930s. Her parents met at the University of London, where her mother played the role of Cecily in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest and her father was a stage manager for the same play.

After stints at boarding schools in England and Canada, she entered Radcliffe College at the tender age of 16 to major in physics and minor in government.

"As the only daughter of a charming and charismatic father, of course I ended up following his footsteps," recalls Selby. "Plus, studying physics was part of the war effort."

Upon completion of her undergraduate studies, Selby received her doctorate in molecular biology from MIT.

"The boys were all coming back from the war and everyone wanted to do nuclear physics, so I branched off into biology," explains Selby.

Her career took a turn toward medicine, where she taught histology at Cornell Medical School, specializing in skin and muscle research.

When asked to serve on the board of directors of RCA, Selby jumped at the challenge of exploring a new field. She was the second female member on the board of RCA. At Avon, Selby was the first.