Host Parishi Kanuga ’26 sits down with Professor Ran Libeskind-Hadas, the founding chair of the new Kravis Department of Integrated Sciences (KDIS) at Claremont McKenna College.

KDIS, through Professor Libeskind-Hadas' leadership, is designed without discipline-defined departments; the curriculum is structured around three grand challenges related to Health (Genomics, Systems Biology, and Health), Brain (Brain, Learning, and Decision Sciences), and Planet (Climate, Energy, and the Environment). CMC students will develop strong foundations in the biological, chemical, and physical sciences, while also using observational and experimental methods coupled with computational and quantitative approaches. This also requires a deep engagement with issues of ethics, policy, economics, and culture, as well as skills in communicating to broad audiences both scientific outcomes and implications.

Professor Libeskind-Hadas received a degree in Applied Mathematics from Harvard in 1987 and completed an M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1993. He has been with CMC since 2021.

Learn more: https://www.cmc.edu/kravis-department...

Chapters
0:00 Introduction to the Integrated Sciences
2:10 The Kravis Department of Integrated Sciences
4:21 A Computational Curriculum
9:01 Communicating Scientific Concepts
11:17 The Robert Day Sciences Center
13:49 Learning and Environment