Knowles says that his experiences as an officer and a father presented him with a sense of responsibility which still colors his mindset as dean.

"It's the same feeling--that I have a responsibility and I had better take it seriously," he says. "I said 'this is my problem, and there are people relying on me, so I'd better do it."

Although Knowles is a scientist in both his academic interest and his love of meticulousness, he also has a deep personal connection to the fine arts.

Upon becoming dean, he redesigned his office to better display a matching pair of John Singleton Copley portraits, one of Thomas Appleton, class of 1714, and the other of Appleton's wife Margaret.

"Would you imagine that, with her looking at me, I would do anything wrong?" Knowles says, indicating Margaret's pensive portrait on the wall opposite his desk.

Knowles also retains the love of music that brought him and Jane together in their undergraduate years at Oxford. They recently outfitted their Vermont weekend cottage with a piano.

In Vermont, the Knowles' wooded lot has demanded that the dean learn how to handle a chainsaw in order to fell trees and clear land--a skill that has served him well in his budget-cutting responsibilities as dean.

THE CHEMIST

By training, Knowles is a research enzymologist. After obtaining his D.Phil. in Chemistry from Balliol College, Oxford, in 1961, he went on to teach and research as a tutor and fellow of Wadham, another Oxford University college.

At Oxford, Knowles directed his own research group, which investigated the workings of enzymes.

During his time at Oxford, Knowles and his family spent several extended periods in the United States. In addition to a post-doctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology, Knowles also spent several sabbatical terms as a visiting professor at Yale.

Knowles first came to Harvard in 1973 to hold the Sloan visiting professorship. After he returned to England, Harvard's Chemistry Department offered him a tenured appointment, and the Knowles family moved to Cambridge the following year.

Science absorbed his father during Timothy Knowles' childhood.

"I had no idea he was a famous chemist," says Timothy Knowles, who was a principal of a primary school before studying at the GSE. "I knew he was an incredibly busy man, always going to somewhere called the lab."

Harvard's Chemistry department gave Knowles his own laboratory in the Mallinkrodt Building and a group of 15 or so researchers when he accepted the tenured position.