Our mission: to inspire and support innovative transdisciplinary research to advance new discoveries and thinking — shaping a bold vision for the university of the future.
I don’t think we can understand the brain or meaningfully push back against the multitude of brain disorders without realizing this problem is much larger than biology. It’s the biological implementation of computer science, statistical mechanics, theoretical physics, chemistry, philosophy, and complex systems. I truly believe this. There’s no way a single lab can begin to think across such an expansive intellectual space. The Incubator is a direct answer to that problem. By stepping outside of whatever boundaries exist, the Incubator opened the door to finding faculty from very different backgrounds who were willing to talk about hard problems outside of their expertise. For us, this meant bringing together neurobiology, theoretical physics, dynamical systems and disease biology. Whatever target we had early on was probably quite silly, but where we ended up was serious. We’ve got a new handle on how sleep controls the relevant math of the brain in health and disease.
― Keith Hengen Associate Professor of Biology | Toward a Synergy between AI and NeuroscienceA Signature Initiative
The Incubator for Transdisciplinary Futures is a signature initiative of the Arts & Sciences strategic plan.
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