Every picture tells a story. One of Annabel Perry’s childhood favorites features her as a grinning 10-year-old clutching a gigantic bullfrog, a slightly out-of-focus snapshot of both place and time that captures her budding interest in the natural world and her future as a scientist — a career path and underlying passion accelerated by undergraduate research and key faculty mentors at Texas A&M University.

This little girl with the bullfrog, however, didn't start out with all the tools she needed to succeed as a scientist. Perry, who was homeschooled as a child in Milford, Texas, grew up believing that women were less logical than men, evolution was not real and human behaviors were not biologically determined. She didn't seriously question those beliefs until, at the age of 16 after researching [...]