Philanthropy backs bold science as federal funds shrink. Schmidt Polymaths support Saad Bhamla’s work on biomechanics of everyday organisms from ripple bugs to flamingos.
Saad Bhamla, Associate Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech, is one of eight recipients of the "Schmidt Polymaths" award from the Schmidt Sciences .Saad Bhamla is a polymath.
At least, that is how he is now recognized by Schmidt Sciences, a philanthropic organization created by former CEO of Google Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy. What is a polymath? The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “a person of great or varied learning.” Stuart Feldman, president of Schmidt Sciences, offered a more pointed answer: “Polymaths are not dilettantes. They’re people who are deep in a lot of things.” He admitted with a touch of irony that “no sane person lets me name anything… but it is a legit term, and it’s a pretty good description of these people.”As federal funds for scientific research are shrinking, philanthropic support is becoming an increasingly important component of basic scientific research. Today, Schmidt Sciences announced the fifth cohort of Schmidt Polymaths, eight early- to mid-career scientists awarded up to $2.5 million each to pursue whatever research they want. One of those scientists is Saad Bhamla, whose “Lab of Extraordinary Organisms” at Georgia Tech “seeks to understand how organisms do amazing things, the physics behind life’s remarkable materials, and how we’re able to use simple concepts to build frugal technology for global health.”. A trainee in Bhamla’s lab, Victor Ortega-Jimenez , first noticed ripple bugs while walking along the Chattahoochee River near Atlanta. Barely the size of a grain of rice, these insects dart across the surface of rushing water so quickly they are almost invisible to the naked eye.“It’s a tiny bug on the surface of water,” Bhamla explained. “It deploys its fans for free, thanks to surface tension pulling on elastic parts of it’s body, what scientists call elastocapillary forces.”, use fanlike appendages on their middle legs to exploit the physics of the air–water interface. When a leg pierces the surface, capillary forces cause the fan to spread open within milliseconds, creating a broad paddle. On recovery, the fan collapses just as quickly, reducing drag. This dual function allows the insect to execute dramatic maneuvers — up to 96-degree turns in 50 milliseconds — while propelling itself at speeds of 120 body lengths per second, a performance comparable to the acrobatic saccades of fruit flies in air. Inspired by this natural innovation, Bhamla’s group and collaborators built a robot, nicknamed “Rhagobot,” equipped with synthetic elastocapillary fans. Like the insects, these artificial paddles spread and collapse passively, powered not by motors or sensors but by the surface tension of water itself. The fans increased thrust, braking and maneuverability, allowing the tiny robot to dart and turn with striking agility. The researchers coined a new term for this design principle: interfacial intelligence — engineering machines that align their form and function with the physics of the environment, rather than fighting against it. "Rhagobot" is a miniature robot that skims across the water surface using elastocapillary forces inspired by the biomechanics of rifflebugs.These robots exemplify the power of curiosity-driven science to bridge biology, physics and engineering. No one set out to design microrobots that skim river rapids; the project began with a simple puzzle observed in nature: how can an insect the size of a grain of rice race across turbulent water with such speed and precision? Following that question led to the discovery of ripple bugs’ elastocapillary fans, and eventually to the creation of artificial devices that may one day inspire new kinds of agile, environmentally responsive machines.Another recent project in Bhamla’s lab shifts the spotlight from insects to birds. Flamingoes were long considered to be filter feeders, passively consuming seeds, crustaceans, plant parts, and other small aquatic animals. Bhamla’s group Working with colleagues, his group discovered that flamingos are far from the passive filter feeders they were long assumed to be. Instead, they use their L-shaped beaks, long necks and webbed feet to stir the water into complex flows that trap prey. Researchers trained Chilean flamingos at the Nashville Zoo to feed from a water-filled aquarium and used high-speed cameras to study their feeding behavior. Results of this research could lead to new technologies for water filtration.These vortical tricks do more than rewrite ornithology textbooks. They also point to potential engineering applications. The team’s experiments showed that the birds’ rapid beak chattering increased prey capture rates nearly tenfold. Perhaps, the researchers speculated, the same fluid dynamics could be used to design new bioinspired particle collection systems to filter pollutants and harmful microorganisms from water sources. What began in curiosity about an upside-down dance may one day lead to cleaner water.Why does Schmidt Sciences honor — and fund — scholars in this way? Stuart Feldman, the foundation’s president, pointed to structural problems in how universities train and resource scientists. Most faculty serve a probationary period of five to seven years before they are granted tenure, a milestone somewhat analogous to reaching partnership in a law firm. The promise of permanent appointment is meant to liberate scholars from the short-term uncertainties of research, freeing them to pursue whatever questions they find most compelling. But Feldman sees a weakness in the system. “Tenure is freedom,” he said. “But a side effect was they didn’t know how to start something brand new, even if they were curious,” referring to newly tenured professors. Having invested so much effort in mastering one field, and in learning its grant panels and funding channels, many researchers stay on the straight path. The Schmidt Polymaths program is designed to give scientists both “permission” and resources to strike out in new directions. Does this work? Feldman is cautiously optimistic. “We can take a modest risk in exchange for possibly changing the landscape,” he explained. The foundation is now collecting data from its grantees to see whether they become more creative over the long term. The deeper issue is how to promote interdisciplinary research. Philanthropic support, untied to narrow deliverables, can enable scientists to cross the disciplinary silos that federal agencies often reinforce — silos that reflect not just bureaucratic divisions but also entrenched cultural differences across the sciences.Interdisciplinarity isn’t just a buzzword. Growing empirical evidence shows it increases both scientific and societal impact. One large-scale study of “research fronts” found that the marginal value of adding a discipline to an interdisciplinary project correlates with roughly, defined in terms of how many other researchers cite the published research. Moreover, scientists who cross disciplinary boundaries tend to produce findings that areto broader society. All this suggests that funding structures encouraging interdisciplinarity — like Schmidt Polymaths — may yield disproportionately large dividends for both knowledge and public good.To call Saad Bhamla and his seven co-recipients polymaths is more than flattery. It signals deliberate intent to dismantle the barriers that constrain interdisciplinary work in today’s research ecosystem. The accumulating evidence suggests that interdisciplinarity drives impact, whether measured in citations, policy uptake, or societal visibility. At the same time, we still lack a full understanding of how and when crossing boundaries delivers the greatest benefits. That is why philanthropy matters to science. Programs like Schmidt Polymaths cannot replace federal funding, but they can do what agencies often cannot — back bold ideas untethered to disciplinary silos. In the current era of
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