I’ve been a sponge for things that interest me, particularly artistic subjects.

Suzanne Montgomery graduated in 1986 with a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education, but her experience on the Hilltop was just the beginning.

“I’ve always been a lifelong learner,” she says. “I’ve been a sponge for things that interest me, particularly artistic subjects.”

After graduation, Montgomery taught third grade and art classes at Pinson’s Kermit Johnson Elementary. In 1990, in search of new experiences, Montgomery moved to the intellectual hotbed of Boston. She became assistant to the director of environmental medicine at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the first in a series of jobs that exposed her to cutting-edge scientific research.

In 1992, Montgomery became laboratory administrator for the Center for Blood Research at Harvard Medical School and, in 1999, laboratory administrator for Harvard’s Stem Cell Institute.

Throughout the years, Montgomery took classes and workshops and attended lectures, exhibitions, and concerts, while her professional life allowed her to pursue both her passion for making visual art and a strong interest in science.

In addition, Montgomery began taking classes and learning new methods at Harvard University’s ceramics studio.

In 2005, she moved back to Birmingham, where she served as director of the Samford after Sundown program, which offered non-credit courses.

In 2014, Montgomery returned to Boston to work as administrative lab manager at Harvard’s Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and the Center for Brain Science (CBS), where researchers are “trying to map the human brain.”

Montgomery says her laboratory positions have been “tremendously rewarding and exciting.”

Though she lacks scientific training, Montgomery makes positive contributions to research efforts using her administrative and planning skills, writing and editing abilities, and attention to detail.

“I share myself – my talents, my strengths, and, I guess, a bit of my confidence – in helping them stay on track,” she says.

Montgomery also nurtures her interest in science by watching documentaries and “learning about the people doing research about our world and the solar system, about things way beyond us.”

Montgomery says there is an important similarity between art and science: “Scientists have to be creative in the way they think, or they won’t be good scientists.”

Montgomery continues to take art classes at Harvard and has created thousands of pieces, including pottery, jewelry, prints, and marbleized paper and fabric.

The cellular images she sees at the lab have greatly influenced her art. Her ceramic pieces feature “asymmetrical carving” and are rarely standard shapes, such as squares or rectangles.

“It’s very random,” she says. “It’s just a flow, like cells.”

This article appeared in the Fall/Winter 2022 issue of ‘Southern Magazine.