<p>"As a graduate student, Israel started working as a teaching assistant at 15. At first, it was awkward, he said. They nicknamed him 'Doogie Howser,' referring to the teenage physician television character from the early 1990s."</p>
<p>interesting, since on the show, doogie graduated from princeton of all places, although at the slightly more preocious age of 10. (it probably helped that the show's emmy-winning creator, david e. kelley (the practice, ally mcbeal, etc), was himself a princeton man.) another doogie/princeton factoid: in 1999, princeton biology prof joe tsien made the cover of time magazine after genetically engineering a smarter strain of mouse that he named "doogie."</p>