Dr. Norman Ellstrand is a Professor of Genetics in the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences at the University of California, Riverside and Founder and past Director of the center for conservation biology and the Biotechnology Impacts Center there. Norm received his PhD in Biology from the University of Texas at Austin and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University before joining the faculty at the University of California, Riverside in 1979. Norm has received many awards and honors during his career, including a Fulbright Fellowship, election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship. He is also an accomplished author noted for writing the book Dangerous Liaisons?: When Cultivated Plants Mate with Their Wild Relatives. Norm is here with us today to tell us all about his journey through life and science.