The Advantage of Not Fitting In

Being an outsider lets you invent your own systems

Photo:
mediaphotos / Getty Images

When I think about how I’ve approached my career, I am reminded of that famous Groucho Marx joke: “Why would I want to be in a club that would accept me as a member?” But my accidental embrace of outsiderdom never came from a place of self-deprecation or defiance. Over time, I’ve found a real advantage in not fitting in.

I work as a physics professor at Brown University, directing a research group working at the interface of cosmology, particle physics, and quantum gravity. I’m also a jazz musician. (If you ever visit Providence, Rhode Island, you’re welcome to stop by the local restaurant where my friends and I perform.)

My career has been shaped by the challenge of figuring out how to navigate those two, seemingly divergent worlds — and the fact that I never quite fit the stereotype of either a theoretical physicist or a jazz musician to begin with. Along the way, I’ve learned to see my unusual combination of experiences and skills as my secret weapon as a theoretical physicist.

I was born in Trinidad and moved with my family to New York City when I was eight. I attended public schools in the Bronx where, during my early years, I was just an average student. I liked playing basketball and the saxophone.

Though my parents valued education, from my viewpoint, it didn’t seem to matter how well I did in school. As far as I was aware, nobody that I knew growing up had gone to college. Besides, looking around my neighborhood, it seemed that my fate was already written: Even at an early age, some of the guys I hung out with were ending up in jail or other bad situations.

Things began to change when I was in the eighth grade and a special guest turned up at a school assembly, wearing an orange jumpsuit and carrying a boom box. It was the African American astronaut Frederick Gregory. Sure, it’s powerful to own a radio and hear the beat, he told us, but the real power is in the ability to make a radio.

That day was the first time I thought about studying science.

Later on in that same school year, my music teacher offered to help me get into the High School of Performing Arts to study jazz saxophone. It was a…