Sethuraman Panchanathan, the 15th director of the National Science Foundation, spoke at the official opening of Northeastern’s EXP Research Center on October 16.
A computer scientist and engineer, Panchanathan is known for championing innovation and inclusivity and for leading breakthroughs in AI.
He spoke with Northeastern Global News about how NSF is supporting impactful research solutions to pressing global and societal challenges, from infectious disease outbreaks to climate change to national security. We spoke to a wide range of people about what they are doing.
His answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Earlier this month, the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry or Economics was announced. Please tell us what NFS has been doing to support future and current award winners.
To date, NSF has funded 262 early-career Nobel laureates, the most of any institution in the United States or worldwide.
NSF unleashes talent across the country. It was founded in 1950 after World War II to answer the question of how to ensure human health, prosperity, well-being, national security, and the economic security of our nation.
Today, we are a $10 billion institution that unleashes ideas and powers research driven by curiosity and discovery at scale.
NSF has influence in all 50 states and works on all aspects of science, technology, engineering, and innovation.
How does NSF partner with academia and industry to foster innovation?
As an example, let me introduce you to something specific to Boston: Ginkgo Bioworks. NSF helped fund the company through grants such as the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant.
Today, the company is a $6 billion company. My point here is that NSF enables basic research, foundational research, translational research, and impactful work that includes startups and people working on research.
If you go to a technology company in Boston and ask them, “What do you think about NSF?” To someone who says, “I was supported by her NSF Undergraduate Research Fellowship grant,” or “My mentor had her NSF grant and supported me from there.” may be encountered.
They would have been influenced by the NSF in some way.
Experiential learning is the driving force behind everything we do at Northeastern, including our research projects. What do you think about integrating real-world experience with what’s happening in the lab?
Northeastern University is NSF’s third largest institution in Massachusetts, behind Woods Hole, MIT, and Northeastern.
Whether it’s pandemic prediction, climate change, climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience, or the big challenges we have, NSF uses fundamental fundamentals to tackle problems and provide solutions. You will see that it has enabled discoveries and breakthroughs.
The real work happens at great places like Northeastern University.
Experiential programs allow students to not only see what leading academic researchers are doing in security and similar fields, but also be inspired by those in the industry who are doing great work. can do.
That’s what makes great innovation possible, and what makes great innovators possible. It’s like a frenzy of ideas.
Without the mentor-mentee relationship, I would argue that these ideas cannot flow quickly and at scale. I was inspired by my mentor. This allowed me to come up with some great ideas as part of my academic experience as a student.
You are a champion of using technological innovation to empower people with disabilities. Please tell me why that is a priority.
My own work started, as you said, with people with disabilities. I worked with people who were visually impaired, people with motor disabilities, people with cognitive disabilities, and children with autism.
But I soon realized that they were people with great ideas and great abilities. I started using the term “people with different abilities.” They are not people without abilities, they have abilities of a different kind.
All you have to do is understand how technology can work with individuals to co-create great futures and amazing and great innovations.
When you start thinking, “Let’s help people with visual impairments lead more gainful employment and purposeful lives,” that innovation becomes useful to the entire population.
Examples include note-taking assistance and remote communication. I don’t know if you know that typewriters were invented for blind people. Where is the typewriter now? It’s right here on your phone.
How beneficial is it for researchers to have access to global networks? How does it foster innovation?
I repeat this: Science is global!
If we want to truly solve grand global challenges, plain and simple, global expertise, global partnerships, and global context are critical.
But in doing so, we need to work with like-minded global partners. After all, scientists care about core values. Therefore, we must embrace core values such as openness, transparency, reciprocity, research, integrity and respect for intellectual property.
That way, we can become hyper-partners and solve these grand challenges more comprehensively and quickly.
What are the most important elements of creativity and innovation?
Freedom is the first fundamental step. If you’re a free spirit, you go out and innovate, right? You have no fear.
Fear is the worst form of suppressing innovation. Or because some kind of constraint, a feeling of “I know I can’t do this,” prevents the inevitable possibility of fullest expression.
Fear is not a good motivator.
What is NSF’s role in supporting research that does not fall into one scientific silo?
Social sciences, behavioral sciences, economic sciences, humanities, and the arts are of great importance in the context of scientific and technological development and design.
Climate change is not just a science or engineering problem. We all know it’s a social problem. It’s a behavioral problem.
Therefore, if you don’t incorporate all of your inspiration in the conceptualization of your technology and the design of your solution, you’ll end up patching things up after the fact.
For example, the Trusted AI program partnered with Amazon includes not only computing information and science, but also social behavioral economic science.
We’re taking this kind of thinking to bring people together to co-create programs. So the community can start responding by coming up with even bigger ideas.
Are you optimistic about the future of AI and machine learning? Why should researchers adopt these technologies?
AI has its challenges. absolutely. But the potential for innovation, the potential for innovation, goes far beyond the extent to which challenges can slow innovation.
Challenges should motivate and inspire us about what kind of guardrails, what new technologies, what innovations we can develop to deal with them.
We don’t run away from challenges. We do not shy away from challenges. We understand and set them.
At times like this, I think it’s better to speed up instead of slowing down.
Cynthia McCormick Hibbert is a reporter for Northeastern Global News. Email c.hibbert@northeastern.edu or connect with us on Twitter. @HibbertCynthia.
