Lee Geiger

I’m not a nerd. I’m an intellectual bad-ass

A t-shirt I saw somewhere

March 29, 2021 – I’ve been up since 4am. I’ve already fed the dog, answered some work emails, ate breakfast, penned a bestseller, napped during a conference call, answered a few more emails, and cleaned up the dog’s business in the backyard. Just another Monday.

Only it’s not. Today my daughter-in-law is defending her doctorate thesis. Soon I’ll log into a Zoom meeting with Ph.D. candidate Caroline Kelley Geiger. Her Harvard professors and a bunch of her wicked-smart classmates will be logging in as well. A smattering of friends will also be in attendance, many of whom she met during her days at Brown or the London School of Economics. Some family, too, including her father Charlie, brother Andrew, husband Ross, and mother-in-law Anne, a.k.a. The Pretty Blonde. I’ll be bringing up the rear of this IQ train.

The title of Caroline’s dissertation appears on the screen: “Evaluating Access to Care and Health Outcomes in Public and Private Insurance.” Phew…at least I can pronounce every word in the title. I’ve attended one other Ph.D. defense, a scientific treatise by Dr. Tim Baffi, a high school cross country teammate of Ross’s who is now a Postdoctoral Fellow at the La Jolla Institute of Immunology. Brilliant guy, Dr. Baffi. Well-spoken, too. But he lost me after “Table of Contents”. Let’s face facts–when it comes to attending a Ph.D. dissertation, it’s unwise to bring a cursory knife to an intellectual gunfight.

Caroline’s delivery is exactly how I expected—measured, deliberate, strong. There’s no hesitation in her voice. Caroline knows this material COLD. She calmly explains the evolution of her theories, the statistical research she collected, and the empirical reasoning supporting her conclusions. The insurance concepts she highlights are too esoteric for me to wrap my head around, but I do know this: If Caroline Geiger were a stock, I’d buy every share I could get my hands on.

Another observation–she’s her parent’s daughter. Her mother, Ann Kelley, a former Providence College accounting professor who was tuning in from Heaven, is bursting with pride at her daughter’s scholarly demonstration and is unabashedly delivering high-fives to St. Peter. And Caroline makes the art of public speaking look as easy as her father does whenever he’s handed a mic. Nice genes if you can get them.

There’s also this little-known fact about the former Caroline Kelley. Because she helped Charlie rebuild houses during her childhood while I blithely wrote checks to contractors, she knows her way around a Home Depot better than Ross, her tool-challenged husband. Both may have graduated from Brown, but at least Caroline can ratchet a wrench. Case in point–two days after their wedding, a pre-dawn rental car ride back to the Martha’s Vineyard airport resulted in a flat-tire, and while Ross cooled his heels inside the car calling the airline, Caroline ventured outside in a driving rainstorm to work the jack, loosen the lug nuts, and replace the spare. Of course, she did.

Her presentation concluded, it was time for questions, followed by a ten-minute break while the professors meet in private to perform the perfunctory exercise of determining if her five years of study and research has pass muster. Caroline technically has their blessing already, evidenced by her job as a Health Economist for Genentech which she’s had since January. Moreover, of the three research papers derived from her dissertation, two of them are already scheduled to be published, the Holy Grail of the academic world. But tradition is tradition.

The professors return, and it’s time to pop open the champagne. “Let’s toast to Dr. Geiger,” says one.

Wait, what?

A verbal 2 x 4 has struck me upside the head. Suddenly strung together like two cans and a string are a pairing of words I honestly thought I’d never hear in my lifetime (besides “avocado toast”). I reach for a tissue, then another. I go looking through the house for The Pretty Blonde. I’m not crying, I tell her. You’re crying.

DOCTOR GEIGER?…Seriously? That means that from now on, for as long as I live, whenever I’m in Caroline’s presence, I can be sure of one thing. There’s finally a doctor in the house.

Thursday, May 27, 2021 – Caroline is graduating today…Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D), Health Policy – Evaluative Science and Statistics. But she’s in San Francisco, not Cambridge, as Harvard will not be holding in-person graduation ceremonies this year. Knowing Caroline, she’ll celebrate by making herself an Aperol Spritz, grabbing the latest issue of The Economist and curling up on the sofa in her new home while Ross cooks up something delicious on the grill. She’s more than earned it.

Congratulations, Dr. Caroline Kelley Geiger. YOU. DID. IT.