Policy Punchline

On their way back to Prof. Stefan Eich's office after the interview, Tiger told Prof. Eich that he had been considering pursuing a Ph.D. because he values intellectual curiosity and derives a lot of joy from constantly learning about new ideas. Prof. Eich chuckled and told Tiger that academia might be one of the most anti-intellectual places of all because people are so focused on their niche and don’t interact with other disciplines enough. We've heard this criticism not only from Prof. Eich – or many other guests like Prof. Reinhard Busse – but almost every academic we've interviewed. People clearly recognize that the academia needs more people who can draw interdisciplinary connections. If one can bring financial economics, political theory, climate change, and many of the other fascinating debates together in a thoughtful way, this person is most likely a wonderful academic. And we believe that Prof. Eich is such an academic. While we don’t have the ability to do so yet, we do hope to build Policy Pun