Diverse Interests Helping To Identify Common Themes for Complex’s Future

Finding Earth-like planets around other stars, sequencing newborns’ entire genomes at birth, and creating clothing made out of DNA — these were just some of the ideas that kicked off a day-long science and engineering summit held at the West Campus on May 16.

More than 70 of Yale’s scientists, engineers and administrators gave up a Saturday to brainstorm about the future of science at Yale and what kind of scientific endeavors should be undertaken at the University’s recently acquired West Campus.

Michael Donoghue, named Yale’s vice president for West Campus planning and program development last fall (see related story), wanted to stimulate new ideas by getting together a group of people who don’t regularly have a chance to interact.

“We’re incredibly well endowed with great scientists and engineers at Yale,” Donoghue told the crowd at the start of the day. “But we’re not very well connected. I wanted to try to bring together people working in very different disciplines to see if we could identify some common themes and visions for the future of science.”

During several breakout sessions, the attendees focused on the most exciting work being done at the intersections of their different scientific disciplines and considered how the West Campus might foster more interdisciplinary collaborations.

While this was just the first of several workshops and brainstorming sessions to come, there were some overarching themes that emerged about what kinds of science might take place at the West Campus — from the exploration of the microbial world to energy and sustainability, computational biology, the neurosciences, natural products chemistry and materials science. Participants also agreed that engineering and technology development should play a central role in the design of the West Campus.

For this first summit, Donoghue invited the chairs of the science departments, including the medical school’s science departments and the engineering school’s departments, the members of Yale’s standing committees for the biological and physical sciences, a selection of faculty from the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, and a number of junior faculty to achieve a broad cross section of Yale’s scientific community. Although no formal report is planned, Donoghue will discuss the ideas that emerged from the summit with President Richard C. Levin, Provost Peter Salovey, Medical School Dean Dr. Robert Alpern and Engineering School Dean Kyle Vanderlick, all of whom attended the meeting, as well as with other deans and officers of the University.

“The summit provided both an affirmation and a considerable amplification of our thinking about what the West Campus should be and how it should operate,” Donoghue said. “There will be other opportunities for input, of course. Developing a proper vision for the West Campus is a collaborative effort.”

There was an obvious excitement among faculty from different corners of campus being able to meet and learn more about each other’s research, and about the potential of the West Campus to transform the sciences and engineering at Yale.

“It’s possible to think about the potential of the West Campus in isolation,” Levin said during the day’s opening remarks. “But it’s much more productive to look to the greater Yale scientific community for ideas about this enormous opportunity.”

— By Suzanne Taylor Muzzin