Christine Emba

So in universities, we run the gamut.

We go from cells to society and our types of research that sets us up for entrepreneurship, innovation, company formation.

It's very tempting to say, what's the return on investment?

I want to see these translate quickly to society.

But what you have to remember is that there's often a very long lead time.

to getting to those discoveries.

And there's a lot of serendipity.

So in universities, we focus on something called curiosity-driven research.

It's a place where we allow people to pursue things that matter, even if you cannot figure out what the application is.

What we're now doing at our institution is we're focusing on something called convergent research.

So you use the example of photonics.

BU created something called neurophotonics, the combination of the study of light, but also thinking about how the study of light contributes to brain health.

We created something called synthetic biology, how the insights of engineering

can be used to advance biological processes.

So convergence is this idea of bringing lots of fields together.

I do believe that most people want to be loved.

You know, they want to be seen.

It was more that they didn't know how to get there.

They didn't feel confident almost in their skills and understanding to make it happen for themselves.

I hear a couple of things.