Jennifer Rudolph, professor in the Department of Humanities and Arts and director of WPI’s Global Asia Hub and Singapore Project Center, was featured as a guest in Intrigued to Innovate, a podcast presented by the Innovation and Design Programme at the National University of Singapore’s Engineering Design and Innovation Centre.
The episode, “What Can a Historian Teach Young Innovators? The Secret Sauce that Distinguishes the Great from the Rest,” explored WPI’s approach to project-based learning and the creativity and innovation that come with combining humanities, social sciences, and STEM education.
You can hear the podcast episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
For the episode’s release, host Dr. Jovan Tan identified key takeaways from the discussion with Rudolph:
- 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞-𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫. The humanities train you to see problems through multiple lenses—building the empathy and cross-cultural fluency that separates good innovators from truly great ones.
- 𝐓𝐡𝐞 “𝐰𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐬” 𝐨𝐟 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐞. Complex, real-world challenges have no single right answer—and humanistic inquiry is precisely what equips you to sit with that uncertainty and still move forward creatively.
- 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭-b𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 l𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞, 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰. WPI graduates leave not only technically skilled but also as creative, adaptable thinkers whose interdisciplinary capabilities compound over a lifetime.
- 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐡 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝𝐬. Technical depth and humanistic thinking aren’t in competition—together, they build the kind of thinker no single discipline can produce alone.
