Feeling the Elephant

You’ve probably heard the parable about a group of blind men each feeling an elephant and trying to explain to one another what they have in front of them—is it a snake (the trunk), a spear (the tusk), a rope (the tail), a wall (the flank), or a tree (a leg)? They are all right—just not completely right.

This has been my experience in IFT. I first became a member when I moved to the United States because my postdoc advisor told me that by joining, I would get cheaper conference…