Georgetown College. Georgetown University.

Dr. Janet Mann (Photo: Roland Dimaya)

What do you regard as your greatest academic success?
Establishing and maintaining the first and only 20-year study of dolphin calf development.

What is your idea of happiness?
A greener planet and time to enjoy it.

Who or what was the greatest influence in your life that led to your career?
Professor Jeanne Altmann, currently at Princeton University, allowed me to study baboons with her for a year in Kenya when I was a mere undergraduate. My graduate advisor, Professor Barbara Smuts, was also a formidable influence.

If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently?
Not much, but would probably try not to “do everything” if something wasn’t getting done.

What do you enjoy about teaching?
The sparkle in a student’s eye when they “get it.”

Who are your favorite heroes/heroines in real life (and why)?
People like Tim Flannery and Jane Goodall…those working desperately hard to improve conditions for life on earth.

Who is your favorite musician?
I have many. My tastes change all the time, but stay in the genres of jazz-blues-classical-rock and traditional African music.

What historical figure would you most like to meet and why?
Theodore Roosevelt. I’d show him pictures of the U.S. today and hope he’d be convinced to establish even more and larger National Parks. I think he would have done even more if he knew what was going to happen.

If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be?
Too many things—clean cheap energy, clean water, good food for all!

If you could change one thing at Georgetown, what would it be?
Make it a green campus.

If you could come back to life as a plant/animal/thing, what would it be?
A female bottlenose dolphin probably. Then I’d know what I was right and wrong about during my human life.

What is your favorite word?
Lately, “pisco.”

What, if any, is your phobia?
I don’t like swimming with big sharks in the water, but force myself not to panic when it happens. I also have a thing about scorpions, since I’ve been stung by a very toxic one and nearly died from it.

How do you have fun?
Bike-riding in a beautiful place.

What is the best piece of advice you could give to your students?
Deviate from the path; travel to places that make you uncomfortable. Never compromise your integrity for a quick fix.

What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
It pertained to academia and how busy life gets as a professor. Professor McKeachie at University of Michigan told me when I was in graduate school that I would need to “learn to write something in 10 minutes”—because I was never going to get large blocks of time!

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