Growing up in Hampton, the face of science was brown like mine.

I knew a lot of black scientists, engineers, and mathematicians, and female mathematicians and engineers, women of all backgrounds. So this idea that anyone could be an engineer, a mathematician, or whatever, was something that I had grown up with and thought was really normal.

Our next-door neighbour taught physics at Hampton University. Our church abounded with mathematicians. Supersonics experts held leadership positions in my mother's sorority, and electrical engineers sat on the board of my parents' college alumni associations.

My dad worked at NASA his whole career; he's a research scientist.

We're going to have to rely on the world of Islam, major Islamic nations, to take the lead in helping promote a very different view of Islam - peace and understanding, as opposed to the radicalization going on. The Saudis and UAE and Qatar and others are going to have to take a leading role in changing hearts and minds in the world of Islam.

Looking back, it puzzles me that my parents decided to stay in Shanghai when they must have known that war was imminent. But the cotton works were my father's responsibility, and duty then counted for something.

I'm very interested in soldier recovery projects and in Bradley Manning's story, the army intelligence officer who's being held as a detainee and is going to trial for crimes of treason.

Guilt for being rich, and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn't enough and you have to go and get shot or something.