In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interview Tom Lubensky, Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. Lubensky recounts his childhood in Missouri, Washington DC, and numerous cities abroad because of his fathers work in the Diplomatic Corps. He describes the unusual circumstances leading to his acceptance at Caltech, and explains how his identity as a physicist only solidified during his time as a graduate student at Harvard, where he worked on hydrodynamics in magnetic systems. Lubensky describes his postdoctoral work in France and his first exposure to liquid crystals. Lubensky discusses his decision to join the faculty at Penn, and he explains the major areas of his research agenda over his nearly fifty years of teaching and research. In the last portion of the interview, Lubensky discusses his recent contributions in the material science community, and he emphasizes the importance for young physicists to grasp fundamental principles at the outset of their careers.