In Untwined, a spirited woman, unheard as a child and young adult, finds her voice and tells her story of survival. Heart in hand, Joan discloses secrets in life, love and science that will make you laugh and cry. Almost fifty years ago, I tried to escape everyday life in the United States and sought foreign adventure in Germany. I found the familiar-love, heartbreak and children to care for. Travel and studies comforted me. I remained in Berlin to pursue a career in science and spent summers enjoying my children on the Greek island of Lesvos. I found a life in Germany that I could not have had elsewhere, exciting but not without problems. I struggled with a complex life as a woman, mother and scientist, torn between two cultures in Berlin, an international hub. My friends in academic science and I experienced both joy and hardships. In Untwined, our stories unfold-the harassment, dishonesty and corruption witnessed during academic mediation, the aftermaths of unrequited love, the story of a love child whose father remained a secret, the making of a successful scientist and the enduring love of a mother.
About the Author: Biography of Joan Creech Kraft, PhD In 1965, I completed my BS in nursing at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and moved to Berlin, Germany to study German at the Free University.. In 1990, I returned to the States to work as research scientist. From 1978 to 1979, I did postdoctoral research at the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Free University and Max Planck Institute of Molecular Genetics in Berlin. From 1978 to 1983, I planed and taught in an experimental MS program in nursing education at the Free University, holding lectures in nutrition, metabolism, biological regulation systems, and the nervous system. From 1984 to1989, I did research in the field of Teratology at the Institute of Toxicology and Embryopharmacology in Berlin. My research involved the pharmacokinetics and placental transfer of 13-cis- and all-trans-retinoic acid. From 1990 to1996, I continued research in Teratology involving the conceptal biotransformation of retinoids (in vitro studies using the technique of intraamniotic microinjections) in the Dept. of Pharmacology, University of Washington in Seattle. From 1996 to 1998, I was research scientist at the University of California San Francisco to study the role of the nuclear receptors for Vitamin A and D in cancer cells. In 2000, I completed all academic requirements for certification as elementary school teacher at Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA. From 2002 to 2008, I worked as school nurse for San Diego City Schools. From 2008 until the present, I work as substitute teacher and am trail guide at Mission Trails Regional Park and for the Audubon Society. Over the years I received many travel awards and invitations. Most memorable were an invitation as speaker to the 1996 FASEB Summer Research Conference on Retinoids; a travel award to attend the European Retinoid Research Group's Conference Retinoids 1995 in Sophia Antipolis, France; an invitation as speaker to the Autumn Meeting (September 1993) of the British Society for Developmental Biology at Queens College, Cambridge, England; and an invitation as speaker to travel from Seattle, WA to Oxford, England in March, 1991 and October 1993.