“Interdisciplinarity thrives at MIT, and it’s very important for technologies like quantum,” says Will Oliver of the MIT Center for Quantum Engineering. “As we build quantum technologies, we need to draw on information from different expertise.”

Isaiah Andrews is an expert in econometrics, the study of methods used in economics. When research yields socially significant conclusions, “I often find myself interested in how sure we are about them,” he says. “To what extent do we know the things we think we know?”

Kimberly Dinh SM ’17, PhD ’20, competing in the US Women’s Open, says her chemical engineering background makes her a better golfer: “My experience in science makes me better at being methodical, having routines, and attacking problems step by step.”

Economist Namrata Kala examines the impact of climate change and other environmental factors on business, agriculture, and workers. “I’m part of a long tradition of trying to understand resilience and adaptation, but now in the face of a changing world,” she says.

Tomás Vega SM ’19 co-founded Augmental, a startup that helps people with movement impairments interact with personal computational devices. Its first product allows users to control a computer, smartphone, or tablet through tongue and head movements.

Surprisingly, some of the earliest adopters of financial discounting were 17th-century English clergy, William Deringer has found. “Most people have assumed these very sophisticated calculations would have been implemented by hard-nosed capitalists,” he says.