Harvard pre-meds are infamous for spending their undergraduate years in Cabot Library cubicles. Dr. Jennifer M. Puck '71 spent them at sit-ins and demonstrations.

"The years when I was there, students were all very concerned about politics and less concerned about academics," she says. "At least, I was."

Her Harvard experience also included three years as a music concentrator and a last-minute decision to attend medical school. But Puck landed squarely on her feet--as a senior investigator at the National Human Genome Research Institute, the agency responsible for the Human Genome Project.

Speaking from her office at the institute's headquarters in Maryland, Puck muses on how she started out at anti-war demonstrations and ended up at one of the most prestigious genetic research projects in the country.

As an undergraduate, Puck joined a vocal group of student activists protesting the government's actions in Vietnam.

"The Vietnam War was happening, and everyone was marching places...I was going to Washington a lot," she recalls.

Puck says her political activism left little time for the serious studying her concentration required.

"When I was in some of the upper-level music classes, they were really difficult," she says. "Biochemistry was easier for me."

After graduation, Puck still had yet to pick a definite career path. She considered graduate work in anthropology and medicine but found a better match for her interests in the medical field.