Long before she penned a mystery tale, Minichino had already enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a college professor and research scientist. She has conducted experimental physics research at both Fordham University and at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. An indefatigable and erudite teacher who truly loves the classroom, Minichino has inspired thousands of students — especially young women — to immerse themselves in the study of science, mathematics, and philosophy. Minichino’s entertaining tales of crime — all of which have a scientific component to them — are yet one more vehicle in her ongoing and enthusiastic discussion of scientific concepts and the myriad technologies that result from them.

I caught up with Camille Minichino in early February here in Seattle, when she was in town for a West Coast crime writers’ convention.

Real Change: You’ve had a fascinating life. You are a doctor of physics, and a life-long, passionate teacher who has had thousands of students. And now you’re a successful crime novelist. You’ve championed women’s involvement in scientific and technical fields that have long been dominated by men. Concerning that subject, have things changed?

Camille Minichino: I went to public high school in Revere, Massachusetts, which was mostly Italian and Jewish. My father was a laborer. It’s still a mystery to me how in the 1950’s I happened to have such incredible teachers. Some were amazing women — one in particular, in math. She told me I was smart. At that age, you believe what teachers tell you. Back then the major influences on my life were my parents and teachers. If someone tells you you’re good at something, then you are good.

RC: Teachers can make or break a young person’s opinion of themselves.

Minichino: By a look or a little comment in the margin, you can make a kid’s day, you can influence a life. My teacher led me to believe that I was a mathematician, and then I was on my way to becoming one. It wasn’t until college that I realized there were not a lot of women in mathematics. Even today, many young women are deterred from pursuing math.

In 1958, I went to Connecticut with three women friends and worked at United Aircraft, what is now United Technologies. That was considered very unusual then. For 18 months, I worked on a computer and on calculators which were large monsters that did basically four functions. I became interested in physics and in 1968 I got my doctorate at Fordham, where I was one of three women in that program. There were maybe 75 men in the department. There were no women teachers. Ironically, the situation in my working class high school was more progressive!

I looked at women’s options at this time. My mother was unhappy slaving away washing the floor everyday. My female high school classmates could go to nursing school or secretarial school, or become stay at home moms. Many were engaged to be married by the time they were 18. Few girls in my high school class went on to higher education. Only one other girl in my math class went on to college.

RC: So you in many ways were forging the road less taken.

Minichino: Yes, but I was then not some sort of free-thinking woman. It had much to do with my high school math teacher and another teacher, my Italian teacher.

RC: In the early seventies, you were teaching and doing research.

Minichino: At the time, I was a Catholic nun and had been through Fordham. The Jesuits there really opened my mind. I had one incredible professor in Process Philosophy. Another Jesuit was a scholar of Semitic languages who would talk about the origins of many church practices and who gave a great perspective. I went back to Emmanuel College, a women’s college in Boston, with these new ideas. The nuns at this time were very polarized, between the traditionalists and those advocating change. It was a difficult time in my life. Emmanuel was not ready for the changes I had grown so comfortable with. I did find some freedom, but I made it for myself. Of course, my students were always wonderful and very supportive.

I started teaching a class in philosophy at the men’s Catholic seminary. I was the first woman to do so. Eventually I left Emmanuel and my religious order.

RC: What are you doing these days?

Minichino: I am retired only from physics. I still teach, do technical editing, and I write.

RC: What about the current status of women in the sciences and technical fields?

Minichino: The numbers are still low. When I was a student, 3 to 5 percent of the PhD candidates in physics were women. Now it’s 4 to 6 percent. It’s a little higher in the life sciences; in medicine the numbers are high. There are now more women in college than men. But women are still not in positions of power where they can really influence what goes on in many fields. Women still have the lower-rung jobs; they still don’t get paid what men get. When I was a college teacher I had female students who wanted to go into veterinary medicine and were prevented from doing so. Because a woman wasn’t strong enough to pick up a horse — as if a man could! Supposedly women couldn’t physically handle the task.

In high school many girls want to be popular; it’s not easy to be known as a smart girl during those years. If you drop out of history or English during your adolescence or teens, you can probably pick it up later. If you drop out of math and science at that age, you can’t so easily resume the study of the subject.

RC: You’re saying that if our culture distracts young women from pursuing math and science, many are effectively locked out of those fields and related professions?

Minichino: Yes. I give a class at the Lawrence Livermore Lab entitled “Science Literacy for the Lay Person”. There are a lot of women in that class. As many as 2,000 employees at Lawrence Livermore are not scientists or technicians: secretaries, librarians, finance and personnel people. One of my favorite things in this class — and this applies to my mystery writing as well — is when someone says to me, “You made that easy to understand.” I explain the principles behind radiation and lasers. You don’t need to know the mathematical equations in order to understand these things, to know what the dangers are and are not. After an hour-long lecture, my students are able to tell me how alpha, beta, and gamma radiation come out of a nucleus. And they are amazed that they can. That is my favorite moment. If someone says to me, “I can’t do science,” I say, “Blame a teacher.”

RC: Throughout history, many solutions to scientific puzzles have proved to be rather simple. 

Minichino: Yes, Fermi used the same simple approach to figure out how many piano tuners are in Chicago.

RC: In terms of the injustices and inequities that exist in our society, where is the role of science in creating a better world?

Minichino: Marie Curie believed that science could do anything and that science is our only hope. She gave her life to that. By the end of the First World War, she and her 18-year-old daughter Irene (who would also eventually win a Nobel Prize) were driving a portable x-ray unit on the battlefield. She created the unit; it was a refitted jeep-like vehicle. They treated soldiers on the field.

RC: Curie is almost a mythic figure in science, and she obviously had compassion.

RC: That mythic scientist is in any field. That is what we are aiming for. There are heroes in front of you. Whether you work as an individual scientist or in a more corporate or institutional arrangement, the goal should always be to make others well, to contribute to the commonweal. In a more immediate way, the study of science teaches you critical thinking, a methodology that you can apply, and should apply to every aspect of your life, social and personal. This is the mission of the American Association for the Advancement of Science of which I’m a member.

You can check out the AAAS “Project 2061” online — 2061 is the year Halley’s Comet returns. They have an outline for what citizens should know in order to be scientifically literate. The last goal of the AAAS encourages scientific methods and ways of thinking as a way for any citizen to avoid becoming a victim, or being swayed or persuaded by whoever might be “in charge.” Any individual who can think critically and who is able to engage questions analytically is less apt to be easily influenced by any cult, persuasion, religion or political perspective. I think that science can do that, so that we have voters who apply reason to voting and making decisions. The heart makes us who we are, but we must use our heads too. Science does not exclude compassion or the heart, but we are also a reasonable species. And we are worth saving along with all the other species.

RC: The goals of economic justice and gender equality must incorporate both the elements of compassion and intellectual discernment?

Minichino: Yes. I also think that those people who are in charge of the economy and of our system of justice, if those people were more reasonable — scientifically grounded — we would have what we are looking for in terms of equity. People with a sense of justice and compassion have a duty to remain connected to science and technology in order to ensure that unscrupulous persons don’t become the only ones who have influence on how science and the fruits of science are applied. n