Education and Outreach

Education

Institute faculty develop innovative educational opportunities that focus on experiential learning in the field of Biologically Inspired Engineering. Our goal is to teach undergraduate, graduate, postdoctoral and medical students how to carry out high-risk, interdisciplinary research that ranges from fundamental to applied, and to understand the unique challenges associated with technology translation. Institute faculty are currently directing and involved in the following Harvard-supported hands-on educational activities:

The guiding vision of the Idea Translation Lab at Harvard University (ITL) is to educate through the process of creation, to explore ideas and conduct experiments at the intersection of art and science, and to create social impact.

The International Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM) is the premiere undergraduate Synthetic Biology competition. Student teams are given a kit of biological parts at the beginning of the summer. Working at their own schools, they use these parts and new parts of their own design to build biological systems and operate them in living cells. This project design and competition format is an exceptionally motivating and effective teaching method.

Global Outreach

Le Laboratoire, located in Paris’s first arrondissement, invites the public to experience the creative process that drives innovation and value in culture as in industry, society, and education as a fusion of art and of science producing tangible – if transient – art and design outcomes. Le Lab is a kind of off-Broadway, or pre-museum, aiming to catalyze change in culture, industry, society and education with partners who invest in the exploration process more decidedly than in the guarantee of any outcome this process might produce.