Last week, Manu Prakash, PhD, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford, was named a 2016 MacArthur Fellow. The video above sheds light on his work ("Fundamentally I like solving puzzles," he says) and discusses his interest in designing ultra low-cost scientific tools ("I grew up in India so I have a lot of empathy for problems in resource-poor settings," he explains). Praskash also talked about his work in a nice article on Vox yesterday, and I love writer Brian Resnick's intro:
From our conversation, I get why he’s considered a “genius.” Not only does he use observations of natural phenomenon to build new, important tools to fight disease, but he’s also building tools to spread something more important: a sense of wonder about nature. A sense of wonder is what gets people asking scientific questions in the first place.
Previously: Stanford bioengineer Manu Prakash named a MacArthur Fellow, National Geographic: "Emerging Explorer" Manu Prakash helping "lead a new age of discovery" and Manu Prakash on how growing up in India influenced his interests as a Maker and entrepreneur
