But the way in which he influenced me most was when I met him at his office in Cornell. I was still in high school and I had just been admitted to Cornell, but I was still deciding what school to go to because I had several choices.

Unbeknownst to me, the admissions office had sent him my application, which was dripping with the universe of course, and he sent me a personal letter inviting me to Cornell to see his lab to help me decide whether or not I would choose Cornell as my school.

And I went up there—followed through on it. He met me outside, on a Saturday. It was snowing. We toured the lab and part of the campus. When I’m ready to go back to New York, it begins to snow a little heavier. He takes me to the bus station because I had come up on a bus from New York City and he said “If the bus can’t get through, here’s my phone number, call me because you can spend the night if you can’t get through.”

I was like, “Who am I?!” for him to treat me this way. He had already been on The Tonight Show, he was already famous—though he hadn’t done Cosmos yet—but nonetheless he was already famous.

I told myself that if I was ever remotely as visible or famous when I am an adult, I will surly give the attention to students in the way that he had given it to me. And it benchmarked how I think about how I spend my time. The president of my institution, or the White House, could call me up and I would say, “you’ve got to wait because I’m here with a student”. That’s the extent to which I have prioritized that mission.