It’s unlikely that anyone would have suggested that Emily Carter, Princeton University’s Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor in Energy and the Environment, had no future in science. Carter, who delivered the keynote address March 29 at Princeton’s Women in STEM symposium, described how as a young girl with an aptitude for math and science she was discouraged from pursuing either. In becoming a scientist, she persevered thanks to her personal resolve and the encouragement of her friends, mentors and family, particularly her mother.