Margot Knight, former Djerassi Executive Director, describes a profound alchemy at the heart of the Leonardo at Djerassi residency: "Selected from more than 200 applicants and nominees, 11 experimental souls arrived as strangers in June and left as friends in July. They included an astrophysicist, a bioengineer, writers, a chemist, visual artists and media artists. Renaissance men and women, all. They came from the east and west coasts of the United States, from England, Switzerland and Chile. All new relationships are tentative, but 30 days turned tentative into tenacious. The residents performed, read and created for each other. They interviewed a bestselling science fiction author for inspiration for their own sci-fi novel. They created ceramic sculptures in riverbeds and performed cello and bass concerts on massive ancient redwood stumps. I have no doubt they and their predecessors are changing the world in seen and unseen ways."

Please enjoy this glimpse into the creative process experienced on our mountaintop retreat. Find the residents’ contemporaneous blogs and share them. I particularly hope those of you who educate young scientists and artists can use the participants’ experiences to break down the either/or of scientific and artistic disciplines. Let’s bend the rules of the academy to reward rather than pigeonhole big thinkers. Discoveries that change the world are often the work of the brave people working on the edges.