The 2019 Schmidt Science Fellows recently attended the second Global Meeting of their Fellowship year in Cambridge, Massachusetts, hosted by MIT, the Broad Institute, and Harvard University.

Megan Wheeler, Executive Director, Schmidt Science Fellows, commented: “We convene our Fellows in Cambridge, Massachusetts, because it is a unique and special hub for interdisciplinary science and innovation. We want our Fellows to both meet some of the people that make the place special and to understand what drives that ecosystem. We are grateful to MIT, the Broad Institute, and Harvard University for being our hosts for the Global Meeting.”

Throughout this week-long convening, Fellows had the opportunity to meet and debate with renowned interdisciplinary scientists and institutional leaders, including Eric Lander, Bob Langer, Rick McCullough, and Maria Zuber. These sessions gave Fellows the chance to explore different career paths to leadership positions, the challenges of establishing and running different types of interdisciplinary institutions, and different management styles.

The Global Meeting also provided opportunities to network with researchers at different career stages, including early-career faculty and postdocs from the host institutions.

Fellows visited cutting-edge research facilities, such as the MIT Media Lab and the Broad Institute Genomics Platform. They also deepened their communications skills, taking interactive workshops with the Alda Center for Communicating Science and the data visualization team from the Broad Institute.

Commenting about the impact of the data visualization skill-building workshop in particular, Fellow Asja Radja, said: “The data visualization session was immensely valuable. The team distilled the fundamental design principles that are crucial for the effective presentation of complex data, but also gave us the chance to practice and experiment with them. I found this particularly useful and feel that I will be able to apply these techniques to my work.”

Explore our Cambridge Massachusetts Global Meeting further with blogs from our Fellows and our highlights film.

Wiriya Thongsomboon, 2019 Fellow: The Interdisciplinary Path – What I learned from our Cambridge Global Meeting

Even though it has been several months since our Global Meeting in Cambridge MA, I still vividly remember the video presentation showing a rock climber, Jim Ewing, with his prosthetic leg climbing the cliff on the Cayman Islands. Along with other Schmidt Science Fellows, I had the great opportunity to visit the Biomechatronics Group at MIT Media Lab… Read more

Dr. Mercy Asiedu, 2019 Fellow: Passion Driven Research

I guess it is of no surprise that switching fields from biomedical engineering with a focus on devices and global health, to computer science in one of the top machine learning labs at MIT, with Schmidt Science Fellows, has its challenges. I had to learn new programming languages, learn how computer scientists think, and how they work, which is very different to what I am used to….  Read more

Fellows met Eric Lander, Founding Director of the Broad Institute and leader of the Human Genome Project, and heard his perspective on leading an interdisciplinary organization and managing different life pressures.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a unique hub of science and innovation, with multiple world-leading universities, institutes, and research centers within walking distance of each other.
Fellows met David Liu, Broad Institute research leader and, with Feng Zhang, a pioneer of gene editing technology.
The Global Meetings are an opportunity for cohorts to reconnect, share ideas, and seek support from mentors and the other Fellows
MIT’s Bob Langer is one of the world’s most-cited researchers. He shared stories from his impressive life and career, providing our Fellows with insights as they consider their own next steps.
Fellow Mina Konakovic Lukovic participates in the visualization workshop at the Broad Insitute. This was one of the sessions that helped Fellows gain skills in the different ways of communicating scientific findings.