Your Occupational Tattoos

Last week on the show, we heard from people who are so passionate about their careers as scientists and mathematicians that they’ve tattooed equations and fragments of DNA on their bodies. So we asked: Do you have a tattoo related to your profession?
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Cris Martin of Arlington, Massachusetts works at Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. She has a colorful matryoshka, a Russian nesting doll, tattooed on her calf. It represents her passion for her job as well as “the idea that there is more on the inside than there is on the outside.” The doll’s cute little face also reminds Cris of her daughter.
Rose Seyfried of New York got her tattoo for more practical purposes. “In school for sound design and audio engineering, I had a professor who stressed the importance of ‘checking phantom power’ (48 volts)” when working with high-end microphones, she writes. He told the class “‘If there’s one thing you should tattoo on your arm, it’s ‘check +48V’ So I did.” Now that Rose is a working engineer, “my tattoo is a funny inside joke – and a reminder of how hard I’ve worked to realize my career dream.”
Gabe from Tennessee is preparing to enter the ministry. On his chest he has the famous line from Psalm 23:4, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” But it’s written in Greek, and in reverse, so that he can read it when he sees himself in a mirror. “Though the verse is not in any sense the root of my Christian faith, it is the one thing that I need reminding of in the most difficult times,” he explains. “It reminds me that no matter what hardships may come up, I have someone by my side.”