stanford chemistry phd

Center for Molecular Analysis and Design

Ben Binhong Lin, Stanford University

Welcome to CMAD!

Taking a multi-investigator, multi-disciplinary approach to develop deeper understanding of molecular structure, function, design and synthesis

CMAD Fellows

Explore the center.

About   Testimonials    Fellows    Alumni   Publications    Symposium    Apply 

Message from the Director

"The complexities of tomorrow’s scientific challenges encourage and necessitate new ideas in both research and graduate education.  The Center for Molecular Analysis and Design was founded on these basic principles.  We have created a research environment in which students are empowered to collaborate with multiple labs and multiple mentors in order to develop solutions to major problems of our time."

-Justin Du Bois

See our Events

The Center seeks individuals with an interest in collaborative research, who are motivated to develop original research projects and who aspire to work on multi-investigator problems in a multi-mentor format.

"As a CMAD Fellow at Stanford, I carried out some of the most exciting research of my career. Our work addressed mysteries that had been in the literature for decades, and involved the application of cutting edge analytical physical chemistry techniques to questions at the forefront of organometallic methodology development -- disciples where cross-disciplinary collaboration may be rare. This unique collaboration captured the imaginations of other scientists as they decided who to interview for faculty positions, and, made it possible for me to get to know Professors Zare and Du Bois, who remain my roll models and mentors. I suspect this research made it possible for me to land my dream job as a faculty member at Duke."

Department of Chemistry Stanford University 337 Campus Drive Lokey Building Stanford, California 94305

jdubois [at] stanford.edu (jdubois[at]stanford[dot]edu) (650) 724-4557

Ph.D. Program

• Ph.D. Students
• Ph.D. Courses
• Ph.D. Resources
• Service Opportunities
• Diversity & Outreach

Upcoming Event

• CSB Cutting Lecture Series: Wallace Marshall, Ph.D., Friday, May 3, 12:30 pm, Munzer!

Advances In Basic Science And Molecular Medicine

The Department of Chemical and Systems Biology explores the frontiers of basic science and molecular medicine, particularly at the crossroads of cellular, chemical, and computational biology. We train Ph.D. students to apply genetic, chemical, cell biological, and quantitative methods to decipher the complex regulatory systems associated with normal physiology and disease states.

Specific research areas include cell signaling pathways, cell cycle control, epigenetics, cell fate specification, and genomic stability. The Chemical and Systems Biology Ph.D. program also emphasizes collaborative learning, and our research community includes scientists trained in molecular biology, cell biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering.

Our Ph.D. program consistently ranks among the top graduate training programs in the world. Most recently the National Research Council named us the top pharmacology-related training program in the United States, based on students’ GRE scores, faculty publications, median time to degree, program requirements, and training resources. The Chemical and Systems Biology graduate program was especially commended for the quality of its research activities.

Why Chemical And Systems Biology?

How do cells achieve directed migration? Why doesn’t a skin cell become a neuron? How do drug-resistant cancers arise and how might they be prevented or overcome? Finding answers to these and other biomedical questions increasingly requires molecular, quantitative, and interdisciplinary approaches.

The Department of Chemical and Systems Biology is uniquely focused on understanding cell biology at the molecular and systems levels, and many of its faculty have expertise in biochemistry, chemistry, physics, and engineering. Developing novel technologies for basic research and translating discoveries into therapeutic strategies are also areas of special interest in the Chemical and Systems Biology community.

Our goal is to train a new generation of scientists with the interdisciplinary skills and creative thinking required to tackle emerging challenges in biomedical research. We invite all interested students to apply to the Chemical and Systems Biology Ph.D. program through the Stanford Biosciences online application form. Applicants whose research interests match well with our scientific mission are encouraged to select Chemical and Systems Biology as their primary home program.

Doctoral Admissions

Use this page to explore admissions data for Stanford's research doctoral programs. While the most common doctoral degree across the university is the PhD, the JSD in Law and the DMA in Musical Arts are also included here. The MD and JD are considered to be professional degrees and are not included. Note that any year referenced in this dashboard refers to the academic year in which the applicant was intending to enroll. For example, an application submitted in September 2018 for the 2019-20 academic year would be counted under 2019-20. These data are limited to new, external applicants only. If you are interested in the Biosciences programs in the School of Medicine, please read the important note below the dashboard.

More information is available about  doctoral program enrollment and demographics , as well as  doctoral degree conferrals, time-to-degree, and graduation rates . Note that local variation in policy and practice regarding admission, matriculation, and degree conferral may affect the departmental and school-level metrics below.

Methodology & Definitions

Application counts.

Applicant counts are based on the number of applications to doctoral programs from new applicants only. Current students who are transferring into a doctoral program from another graduate program at Stanford without submitting a new application are not included. If an application was transferred between programs during the admission process, the application is counted under the final program for which it was considered, not the original program.

Application Years

Applications and offers of admission are counted in the year in which the applicant was intending to enroll. The year in this case encompasses the summer quarter through the following spring, so the 2018-2019 application year would include students who intended to matriculate in Summer 2018 through Spring 2019. If an applicant was admitted and decided to defer their enrollment, that application and offer of admission are counted in the later, deferred year instead of the original year. The majority of new doctoral students matriculate in either autumn or summer. As these dashboards are updated annually in the autumn, the data for the most recent year will not include applicants or admits for winter or spring.

Admit Rates

The admit rate is calculated by dividing the number of offers of admission by the total number of applications received.

An Important Note about Stanford Biosciences

Prospective students may only apply to a single doctoral program at a time, with the exception of the  14 programs in Stanford Biosciences . Beginning with the 2022-23 application period, prospective students in Biosciences are permitted to select up to two programs for consideration as part of their application. (Prior to the 2022-23 application cycle, students were able to and would commonly select up to three programs for consideration.) A successful applicant will only be offered admission to one of these programs, which may result in an artificially low admit rate for some of these programs.  These programs include:

• Biochemistry
• Biomedical Informatics
• Cancer Biology
• Chemical and Systems Biology
• Developmental Biology
• Microbiology and Immunology
• Molecular and Cellular Physiology
• Neurosciences
• Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine
• Structural Biology

Visit the  Graduate Admissions website  for more information about pursuing graduate study at Stanford.

The data are available for download in Google Drive .

• Data Source(s): PeopleSoft Campus Solutions, Institutional Research & Decision Support

Stanford University is committed to providing an online environment that is accessible to everyone, including individuals with disabilities. If you cannot access this content or use any features on this site, please contact  [email protected]  to obtain alternate formats.

You may submit feedback on this dashboard through the  feedback form .

Explore Graduate Programs

Doctoral Program

The PhD program is designed to give students a broad and deep understanding of materials science and engineering so that they will have long and fruitful careers as researchers.

Main navigation, doctor of philosophy in materials science and engineering.

Students who graduate from our program will be among the world’s leading experts in the areas of their dissertation research. They also will have the intellectual tools to move into new research areas as the field grows and develops.

During the first year of the PhD program, students are required to take five courses from our core curriculum, attend the weekly colloquium lectures to learn about cutting-edge materials science research, explore finding an advisor (which includes a weekly course hour), and enroll in some technical elective coursework.

Students are expected to find a research group to join before the start of the spring quarter in their first year. During the summer after the first academic year, students typically work intensely on research under the guidance of a professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department or a professor from another materials-related department.

In the second year, students continue to take technical elective coursework and do research. Between October and January, they take a qualifying examination, which they must pass to be formally admitted to candidacy for a PhD degree. In the first part of the exam, students give a 20-minute presentation on their proposed area of dissertation research. A committee of professors, which includes the student’s advisor, then questions the student on the proposed topic for 20 minutes. Finally, the professors ask questions for 80 minutes on topics from the core curriculum. Students are expected to demonstrate an understanding of the fundamentals of materials science and to show that they can think clearly on aspects that are important for their research. Students who do not pass the qualifying exam can attempt it one more time in the spring quarter. It is not uncommon to pass one part but not both parts on the first try.

Once students pass the qualifying exam, they continue to take classes and do their dissertation research. Students are required to take 44 core, technical, and seminar units (approximately 18 quarter-long classes).

The final stage of the PhD program is to write a dissertation and pass the university oral examination, which involves giving a public seminar defending the dissertation and answering questions from a private panel of four professors. Most students complete the entire program in five years and receive several employment offers as they write their dissertations.

The university’s basic requirements for a PhD are outlined in the Graduate Degrees section of the Stanford Bulletin.

The PhD degree is awarded after the completion of a minimum of 135 units of graduate work as well as satisfactory completion of any additional university requirements. Degree requirements for the department are as follows:

1 All core courses must be completed for a letter grade and to qualify for the qualifying exam a GPA in the core courses must be 3.5 or higher.

2 Eight, elective, technical courses must be in areas related directly to students’ research interests.  Five courses must be in MATSCI, including one course in Characterization*

*The characterization course may be taken out of the department with the approval of the Director of Graduate Studies.

All courses must be completed for a letter grade.

3 Materials Science and Engineering PhD students are required to take MATSCI 230 Materials Science Colloquium during each quarter of their first year. Attendance is required, roll is taken and more than two absences result in an automatic "No Pass" grade.

4 Research units will very likely equal or exceed 75, so other courses may count here.  This could include other engineering courses, MATSCI 400 , transfer units, other university courses, up to 3 units of MATSCI 299 .

5 Students must complete Materials Science Research Advising during the Autumn of their first year.  They will complete Ethics and Broader Impacts in Materials Science during the Spring of their first year.  In addition, students complete at least 10 residency units.  These course units may include  MATSCI 300  Ph.D. Research, other engineering courses,  MATSCI 400  Participation in Materials Science Teaching, or a maximum of three units  MATSCI 299  Practical Training.

• Students must consult with the PhD Advising Team or their academic adviser on PhD course selection planning. For students with a non-MATSCI research adviser, the MATSCI academic/co-adviser must also approve the list of proposed courses. Any proposed deviations from the requirements can be considered only by petition.
• PhD students are required to apply for and have conferred a MATSCI MS degree normally by the end of their third year of studies. A Graduate Program Authorization Petition (in Axess) and an MS Program Proposal  (PDF) must be submitted after taking the PhD qualifying examination.
• A departmental oral qualifying examination must be passed by the end of January of the second year. A grade point average (GPA) of 3.5 in core courses MATSCI 211-215 is required for admission to the PhD qualifying examination. Students who have passed the PhD qualifying examination are required to complete the Application for Candidacy to the PhD degree by June of the second year after passing the qualifying examination. Final changes in the Application for Candidacy form must be submitted no later than one academic quarter prior to the TGR status.
• Students must maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.0 in all courses taken at Stanford.
• Students must present the results of their research dissertation at the university PhD oral defense examination.
• Current students subject to either this set of requirements or a prior set must obtain the approval of their adviser before filing a revised program sheet, and should as far as possible adhere to the intent of the new requirements.
• Students may refer to the list of "Advanced Specialty Courses and Cognate Courses" provided below as guidelines for their selection of technical elective units. As noted above, academic adviser approval is required.
• At least 90 units must be taken in residence at Stanford. Students entering with an MS degree in Materials Science from another university may request to transfer up to 45 units of equivalent work toward the total of 135 PhD degree requirement units.
• Students may propose a petition for exemption from a required core course if they have taken a similar course in the past. To petition, a student must consult and obtain academic and/or research adviser approval, and consent of the instructor of the proposed core course. To assess a student’s level of knowledge, the instructor may provide an oral or written examination on the subject matter. The student must pass the examination in order to be exempt from the core course requirement. If the petition is approved, the student is required to complete the waived number of units by taking other relevant upper-level MATSCI courses.

PhD minor in Materials Science and Engineering

The university’s basic requirements for the PhD minor are outlined in the Graduate Degrees section of the Stanford Bulletin. A minor requires 20 units of graduate work of quality and depth at the 200-level or higher in the Materials Science and Engineering course offering. Courses must be taken for a letter grade. The proposed list of courses must be approved by the department’s advanced degree committee. Individual programs must be submitted to the student services manager at least one quarter prior to the quarter of the degree conferral. None of the units taken for the PhD minor may overlap with any MS degree units.

SIGF Affiliated with ChEM-H

Main navigation.

The  Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship (SIGF) Program  is a competitive, university-wide program that awards three-year fellowships to outstanding doctoral students engaged in interdisciplinary research. Since 2016, ChEM-H has awarded six fellowships and one honorary fellowship. ChEM-H fellows are invited to join the  Chemistry/Biology Interface Training Program .  

Graduate students should apply for the fellowship through the  Bio-X Fellowship portal .  Students who are proposing research at the interface of chemistry, biology, and engineering and are interested in being sponsored by ChEM-H should select "Sarafan ChEM-H Fellowship" on their application.  Please note that all students who apply will be considered for a fellowship from  all three  institutes (Sarafan ChEM-H, Stanford Bio-X, and the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute).

Eligible graduate students must be starting their second, third, or fourth year of a Ph.D. program on September 26, 2022 and must be officially active in a Ph.D. program by the application deadline. Proposals must be interdisciplinary (bringing together two or more separate fields of study) with at least two faculty members involved in the proposed project as mentors. Preference will be given to students who are jointly mentored by at least two faculty members who are experts in distinctly separate areas of science and technology. For additional eligibility, award terms, and policies, refer to the   Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship website .

For eligibility and application questions, contact Bria Castellano ( [email protected] ).

SIGF in the news

• Institute Scholars
• Knowledge Centers
• Students and postdocs

ChEM-H researchers work toward new understanding of cancer camouflage

2021 sigf affiliated with chem-h - david l. sze and kathleen donohue interdisciplinary fellow: tara murty, biophysics phd student & md student (mstp).

Tara is a graduate student in the Department of Biophysics advised by Crystal Mackall and is pursuing her MD through Stanford’s Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP). She integrates immunology, cellular engineering, and computational biology to understand why CAR T-cell therapy, which has revolutionized oncology through engineered targeting of molecules on previously untreatable cancers, does not work for all patients. 

2020 SIGF Affiliated with ChEM-H Fellow: Justin Donnelly, Chemistry PhD Student

Justin is originally from New York, NY and attended high school at the Princeton Day School in Princeton, NJ. He attended the University of Chicago for college (B.S./M.S. ‘18) and did his undergraduate work with Professor Ray Moellering, developing a biocompatible, catalyst-free strategy to synthesize stapled and macrocyclic peptidomimetics. His primary research interests lie in molecular medicine, glycobiology, and immunology at the interface of chemistry and biology. His graduate work in the Bertozzi Group bridges chemistry, glycobiology, and functional genomics, leveraging genome-wide CRISPR screening technology in collaboration with Prof. Mike Bassik to investigate the biology of galectins. His research seeks to identify new strategies to control these immunomodulatory glycan-binding proteins, which play critical roles in inflammation and cancer progression, for potential therapeutic benefit. 

2020 SIGF Affiliated with ChEM-H Fellow: Brianna McIntosh, Cancer Biology PhD Student

Brianna is a graduate student in the Cancer Biology Program advised by Prof. Jennifer Cochran in the Department of Bioengineering. She is interested in utilizing yeast display and directed evolution to engineer high affinity proteins to treat and better understand cancer progression. Her project focuses on engineering a receptor recently implicated in lung adenocarcinoma to act as a decoy receptor, sequestering overexpressed ligand in the tumor microenvironment to prevent growth. 

2019 SIGF Affiliated with ChEM-H Fellow (Anonymous Donor): Daniel Mokhtari, Biochemistry PhD Student & MD Student (MSTP)

Daniel is a graduate student in the Department of Biochemistry co-advised by Polly Fordyce and Daniel Herschlag. He is developing and applying a microfluidic-based high-throughput technology to make quantitative measurements of enzyme function at an unprecedented scale. With this technology, he aims to 1) understand the molecular details of how enzymes achieve amazing catalytic prowess, 2) dissect the bases for enzyme allostery, and 3) generate foundational datasets that will train new algorithms predicting mutational effects on function. He is pursuing these aims by studying phosphatases—model enzymes central to cell homeostasis, pathogen virulence, and human disease. In addition, Daniel is pursuing his MD through Stanford’s Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP). 

2019 SIGF Affiliated with ChEM-H - Gold Family Graduate Fellow: Weijiang Zhou, Biophysics PhD Student

Weijiang is pursuing his PhD in Biophysics in the lab of professor Wah Chiu. He combines chemistry and electron microscopy to solve the structures of small molecules. He is developing a workflow for cryo-electron crystallography methodology, including sample preparation, data collection, and data processing, for solving atomic structures of small molecule nano-crystals. A high throughput and accurate methodology for atomic structure determination of small molecule crystals will impact chemical research and the pharmaceutical industry. 

2018 SIGF Affiliated with ChEM-H - David L. Sze and Kathleen Donohue Interdisciplinary Fellow: Corleone Delaveris, Chemistry PhD Student

Corleone is a graduate student in the lab of Prof. Carolyn Bertozzi in the Department of Chemistry. He studies how the glycocalyx — the various sugars of glycoproteins and other glycoconjugates on the cell surface — participates in disease and how it can be engineered. He combines organic synthesis, polymer chemistry, and immunology to study and manipulate the complex network of glycan-based interactions. Specific projects include studying how influenza viral fusion is affected by bulky glycoproteins and developing glycan-based immunotherapies for cancer. 

2018 SIGF Affiliated with ChEM-H - Honorary Fellow: Catherine Liou, Chemical Engineering PhD Student

Catherine is a graduate student advised by Professor Elizabeth Sattely in the Department of Chemical Engineering. She is interested in the roles that dietary plant molecules play in modulating human health and disease. While metabolites found in dietary plants have long been implicated in disease prevention, there is limited understanding about the specific mechanisms through which they interact with human physiology. Catherine is hoping to understand and quantitate these interactions using an approach that considers a controlled plant metabolome, a relevant food context, and the gut microbiome. 

2017 SIGF Affiliated with ChEM-H: Winston Becker, Biophysics PhD Student & MD Student (MSTP)

Winston is pursuing his PhD in Biophysics in the lab of Professor Will Greenleaf where he studies functional RNAs and nucleic acid binding proteins. He applies high-throughput methods to make millions of biophysical measurements in parallel. Using these methods, he is interested in 1) probing the folding and catalysis of large functional RNAs to better understand how RNA can be used to form complex molecular machines and 2) examining the sequence specificity of RNA and DNA binding proteins. In addition to doing research, Winston is pursuing his MD through Stanford’s Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP). 

2017 SIGF Affiliated with ChEM-H Fellow (Anonymous Donor): Jackie Carozza, Chemistry PhD Student

Jackie studies the innate immune system and its relevance to fighting cancer in Professor Lingyin Li’s lab in the Department of Biochemistry. In particular, she is interested in the regulation of cGAMP, a newly discovered second messenger signaling molecule that activates the innate immune response. She combines chemical biology, cell biology, and immunology to understand and manipulate innate immune activation by cGAMP. 

2016 SIGF Affiliated with ChEM-H Fellow (Anonymous Donor): Anna Koster, Chemistry PhD Student

Anna is co-advised by Prof. Justin Du Bois in the Department of Chemistry and Prof. Merritt Maduke in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, and splits her time between the two labs doing chemical synthesis and electrophysiology. Her project has recently evolved into studying CLC-2, which is the most abundant chloride channel expressed in the brain. She uses a combination of computational techniques, synthetic chemistry, and molecular biology to develop highly selective and potent small-molecule inhibitors of CLC-2 in order to better understand its physiological function. 

BIOC-PHD - Biochemistry (PhD)

Program overview.

Office: Beckman Center, B400 Mail Code: 94305-5307 Phone: (650) 723-6161 Web Site:  https://biochemistry.stanford.edu/

Biochemistry is a department within the School of Medicine, with offices and labs in the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine at the Stanford Medical Center, the Shriram Center for Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering, and the Stanford Genome Technology Center. Undergraduates and graduate and medical school students may take courses the department offers.

The Department of Biochemistry focuses on the molecular basis of life by studying the structures and functions of proteins and nucleic acids, the control of development, molecular motors and the cytoskeleton, trafficking of proteins between organelles, regulation of gene expression, protein homeostasis, structure and design, genetic and epigenetic control of chromosome function, and the application of genomics, all toward the understanding of health and disease. Advanced courses in more specialized areas emphasize the most recent developments in biochemistry, biophysics, cell biology, and molecular biology. These courses include the physical chemistry of proteins and nucleic acids, membrane biology and biochemistry, the cytoskeleton, mechanisms and regulation of nucleic acid replication and recombination, the biochemistry of bacterial and animal viruses, the molecular basis of morphogenesis, and the structure and function of both eukaryotic and prokaryotic chromosomes.

The Department of Biochemistry offers a PhD program that begins in autumn quarter of each year. The program of study is designed to prepare students for productive careers in biochemistry; its emphasis is training in research, and each student works closely with faculty members. Opportunities exist for directed reading and research in biochemistry and molecular biology using the most advanced research facilities, including those for light and electron microscopy, chromatography and electrophoresis, protein and nucleic acid purification, rapid kinetic analysis, synthesis and analysis, single-molecule analyses using laser light traps, microarray generation and analysis, and computer graphic workstation facilities for protein and nucleic acid structural analysis. Ongoing research uses a variety of organisms, from bacteria to animal cells.

Those applying for graduate study should have at least a baccalaureate degree and complete work in cell and developmental biology, basic biochemistry and molecular biology, and genetics. Also required are: at least one year of university physics; differential and integral calculus; and organic, inorganic, and physical chemistry. The department is especially interested in applicants with research experience in biology or chemistry. Students must apply, including transcripts and letters of recommendation, by December for admission in the following autumn quarter.

Applications should be submitted at the Office of Graduate Admissions website. Applicants are notified by March 31 of decisions on their applications. The Biochemistry Department has made scores from the general Graduate Record Examination (GRE) (verbal, quantitative, and analytical) optional on our application.

All applicants are urged to compete for non-Stanford fellowships or scholarships, and U.S. citizens should complete an application for a National Science Foundation Predoctoral Traineeship. Students receive financial support to cover ordinary living expenses; Stanford tuition costs are paid. Applicants for admission to the department are considered regardless of race, color, creed, religion, sex, age, national origin, or marital status.

Postdoctoral research training is available to graduates with a PhD or an MD degree. Qualified individuals may write to individual faculty members for further information.

Free Form Requisites

Students graduating with a PhD in Biochemistry from Stanford are expected to be generally proficient in four core scientific areas relevant to biochemical research and the specific scientific areas most relevant to their particular thesis projects. The four core proficiency areas are:

Quantitative Biochemistry and Biophysics

Molecular Biology

Cell Biology

Proficiency can be demonstrated by successfully completing graduate-level courses in each of these four areas or by other means with the permission of the graduate advisor.

In addition to the requirement for a PhD dissertation based on original research, students must complete six advanced courses in biochemistry and related areas among the 135 total units required for the Ph.D. The selection of these courses is tailored to fit the background and interests of each student.

A second requirement involves the submission of two research proposals. The student presents these proposals to a small committee of departmental faculty members responsible for monitoring the progress of student curricular and research programs and a journal club presentation. All PhD students must participate actively in the department’s seminar program. Students are encouraged to attend and present papers at regional and national meetings in cellular biochemistry and molecular biology. Teaching experience is an integral part of the PhD curriculum and is required for the degree. The Department of Biochemistry offers only an MS to students already enrolled in the PhD program. Students should contact the Graduate Studies advisor for more details.

[email protected]

Phd students.

Eliel Akinbami

Rob Bierman

Theodora Ulli Jordanka Bruun

Peter Cavanagh

Rebecca Chan

Claire Chiang

Christian Choe

Anthony Cordova

Jon Doenier

Maria Filsinger Interrante

Sarah Frail

Kelsey Fryer

Rachael Kretsch

Stephanie Kabeche

Martha Kahlson

Rachel Mardjuki

Elisabeth Meyer

Anahita Nejatfard

Leslee Nguyen

Kwamina Nyame

Chandni Patel

Ramya Rangan

Chris Ritchie

Agnele Sewa

Valentino Sudaryo

Eduardo Tassoni

Gabriel Tauber

Avin Veerakumar

Songnan Wang

Helen Yue Zhang

Zicheng Zhao

Ivan (Vanya) Zheludev

Alby Joseph

Dayanne Carvalho

Delaney Smith

Jia Zheng Woo

Sofia Luengo-Woods

Carlo Armijo

Collin Chiu

Ananya Vinayak

Cindy Sandoval Espinoza

Rebekah Costello

Catrin Hunter

Logo Left Content

Logo Right Content

Stanford University School of Medicine blog

From Palo Alto to rural India: A cultural exchange is advancing perinatal health

Three first-time mothers dressed in identical pink, floor-length hospital gowns and blue surgical masks sat in a small, windowless hospital conference room in rural Gujarat, a state of 60 million people on India's western coast, roughly half the size of California.

The young women described the experience of having a child in the neonatal intensive care unit at this modern hospital located so far from their homes that they were staying in the mothers' onsite dormitory. One mom had been there for nearly two months.

Speaking in Gujarati, the mothers shared worries about how their families were faring without them back home -- some as far as a three-hour drive away. One talked about the pain of lactation and the others readily agreed. Another said she was angry with God, though, with her baby's health now improving, her faith was starting to rebuild.

By the end of the conversation, all agreed group therapy sessions where NICU moms could talk about how they're feeling, just as they had done that day, would be helpful in relieving stress and alleviating loneliness.

It was a valuable experience for several Stanford Medicine clinicians who were part of the conversation and able to ask the mothers questions with the translational help of an Indian psychiatrist.

The doctors had traveled to Shrimad Rajchandra Hospital and Research Centre (SRHRC) at the invitation of Stanford neonatologist Nilima Ragavan , MD, and were there in part to determine what types of perinatal mental health programs could work in rural India -- where the direct and codified approach of Western psychology may not be appropriate. 

 "It might be enough to start out with just encouraging people to talk about their emotions," said Stanford child and adolescent psychologist Richard Shaw , MD. 

The January visit to India was a byproduct of a nearly decade-old medical and cultural exchange between Stanford Medicine, SRHRC, and the government of Gujarat that was cultivated by Ragavan, who was born and raised in India.

The goal is to foster the sharing of lessons and evidence-based best practices between clinicians in the U.S. and India. The Stanford Global Child Health Program has taken note: The Indian center is one of just a few approved global health sites that can host Stanford pediatric trainees. 

SRHRC is a unique international partner because it offers acute, comprehensive care provided to a largely underprivileged, rural population. The hospital was founded as a charitable institution to serve the tribal and migrant communities of South Gujarat at no cost or substantially subsidized rates. 

Five faculty members and one neonatology fellow made up the Stanford Medicine contingent that accompanied Ragavan to India in January. Each presented at an annual symposium organized by Ragavan, SRHRC and Gujarat faculty that brings together doctors, nurses and other health care representatives to discuss advances in perinatal medicine.

One of the primary objectives this year was gauging the appetite for implementing palliative care and perinatal mental health interventions among symposium attendees. Historically, mental health has been a taboo topic in India, Ragavan explained. She wasn't sure how discussions of perinatal depression and anxiety would be received, or even if mental health was perceived as a problem among clinicians and families.

"Before trying to impose a solution to a problem," said Shaw, "we needed to figure out whether there was a problem and how it's similar to, or different from, what we see in the U.S."

Shaw emphasized the importance of coming into such a situation with humility. And SRHRC clinicians at the hospital in Gujarat said they took notice of how the relationship with Stanford has felt different than others. "The beauty of what Stanford has done is truly partnering with us, rather than just giving us advice," said pediatrician Atmarpit Dr. Mansiji, MD.

A two-way exchange

Because Gujarat, India and Palo Alto, California share few surface-level similarities, Shaw was surprised to hear the NICU moms talking openly about many of the same things as his patients in the Bay Area.

He left the interaction sensing that guilt may be a universal feeling for NICU moms no matter the location, but also recognized that mental health interventions should originate from Indian clinicians who understand the language, tribal needs and cultural norms.

The key for anybody who's going to do global health work is that you have a partner on the ground.

"The key for anybody who's going to do global health work is that you have a partner on the ground," Ragavan said.

Local know-how is especially important in India, which is estimated to be the most populous country in the world. UNICEF reports over 25 million babies are born in India each year, whereas annual U.S. births hover around 3.6 million, according to the most recent census data. The Indian government recognizes 22 official languages (in addition to English), and there are hundreds more unofficial languages and thousands of dialects spoken. 

Shrimad Rajchandra Mission Dharampur has been providing accessible care for the community of South Gujarat since 2004, operating a hospital in Dharampur for 18 years. In 2022, the mission opened a state-of-the-art care center with 250 beds, including 30 NICU beds, which are often fully occupied.

It looks like a Western medical institution and stands out from its agrarian surroundings. Not even a mile away are homes with beds sheltered by a simple roof, otherwise fully exposed to the elements. Cows can be seen wandering the streets.

In addition to the main campus in Dharampur, SRHRC also runs a robust mobile outreach program (established in 2005) that reaches an estimated 800-1,000  people per day and provides public health education and medical care. 

Photo gallery: Scenes from the mobile clinic

A 'very anti-Silicon Valley' approach

While the collaboration between Stanford Medicine and SRHRC has grown over the last 10 years, it began in humble fashion, with a great deal of listening.

"It was very anti-Silicon Valley," Ragavan said. "Many in the Bay Area talk about being game-changers, but we didn't go into our partnership with SRHRC with grand visions. The approach was: Let's just start at the grassroots level and then let's build up upon our success." 

Mansij, the pediatrician who leads the neonatology team at the Indian center and received medical training in both the U.S. and India, said it was clear from the outset that Ragavan's approach to service was refreshing.

Nilima actually understood the context of where we are, what we have and what small interventions could make huge differences in outcome

"Nilima actually understood the context of where we are, what we have and what small interventions could make huge differences in outcome," she said.

Shah estimates Stanford Medicine's contributions have improved care for an overwhelming majority of moms and babies at SRHRC because the focus is on foundational change rather than technical interventions that might improve outcomes for only a small number of babies. 

For instance, the NICU staff at SRHRC shared a distressing statistic: The mortality rate for babies born elsewhere and brought to SRHRC was three times higher than that of babies born at the hospital. In response, in 2018, Ragavan and a team of Stanford Medicine doctors, nurse practitioners, critical care transport nurses and respiratory therapists worked with SRHRC to develop a specialized neonatal transport team and van that has improved outcomes for outborn babies.

Photo gallery: Collaboration between the Stanford and India clinicians

Still, the transport data revealed a new problem -- about 10% of the transported babies are leaving the hospital with their parents sooner than doctors recommend. Ragavan lists several possible reasons, such as economic constraints, living long distances from the hospital, or a breakdown in communication between clinicians and patients.

"In the past, many of these babies probably never even made it to medical care and were dying in their villages," said Ragavan. "Now, there are more that have been transferred to tertiary centers as medical services have improved, and that's a good thing. But we are often not considering what these families go through to be able to access that level of medical care."

Giving and getting back

Given the trauma families often experience as a result of having a child in the NICU, it made sense to Ragavan and the core team in India to introduce the topic of perinatal mental health at SRHRC and to the broader community of obstetricians and pediatricians in Gujarat.

At the request of the government of Gujarat, Ragavan has scaled up Stanford's presence in the state and she now regularly communicates with clinicians at other Gujarat hospitals and medical colleges about their needs. "Our patients are really suffering," she recalls them saying.

Stanford pediatric and perinatal psychologist Celeste Poe , PhD, presented on perinatal mental health disorders at the January symposium and was excited to share her expertise, noting that psychologists working in NICUs are still rare, even in the U.S. 

"Families benefit when everyone they encounter in the hospital shares the importance of mental health, especially in the perinatal period," she said, adding that just asking families how they're doing can go a long way.

In India, like the U.S., there is often an expectation that moms are selfless nurturers who put themselves last. As Poe spoke with Indian clinicians about addressing "self-care" with new moms, the clinicians shared that "self care" connotated selfishness. 

When she reframed it to focus on the benefits for both moms and babies -- for example, moms getting adequate nutrition or sleep to be able to better care for their babies -- there was wider agreement about its applicability. "That was an enlightening conversation about how to approach some of those mental health aspects in a culturally sensitive way and adapt terminology," Poe said. 

Ragavan is pleased clinicians in India were receptive to addressing perinatal mental health and looks forward to further meaningful collaboration between the two institutions and the state. 

In reflecting on what continues to drive the near decade-long exchange, Ragavan described a shared mission to make sure that evidence-based care is equitably and widely disseminated across Gujarat  and beyond. What does she see when she visits? Clinicians from both the U.S. and India who are enthusiastic about making holistic improvements to care. 

"Both sides feel so positive about the partnership," Ragavan said. "The team came back to California thinking what we received from our time in India is more than what we gave." 

The view of the amphitheater outside the ashram seen at night and during the day (Laura Hedli)

Related posts

How personal experience forged this student’s passion for combating gender-based violence  

Why precision medicine’s targeted interventions may help prevent dangerously early births

Popular posts.

Could anesthesia-induced dreams wipe away trauma?

Addictive potential of social media, explained

Dates and Deadlines

Main navigation

The application to join the 2025 cohort opens June 1, 2024 .

Our dates and deadlines help you plan ahead for your applications.

Each incoming Knight-Hennessy scholar must also apply to, be accepted by, and enroll in a full-time Stanford graduate degree program.

If you have already been offered and deferred admission to enroll in a full-time Stanford graduate program in 2024, or you are a Stanford PhD student who will start your PhD in 2023 and will begin your second year in 2024, then you must submit one application to Knight-Hennessy Scholars .

Otherwise, you must submit two separate but concurrent applications; one to Knight-Hennessy Scholars, and one to your Stanford graduate degree program . This applies both to candidates seeking admission to their first Stanford graduate degree program, as well as to current Stanford graduate students adding a second graduate degree. 

Last updated October 11, 2023.

2024 cohort of Stanford Science Fellows named

Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences has awarded five scholars from top research programs the distinguished Stanford Science Fellowship for 2024.

Five award-winning scholars have been selected as the  2024 cohort of Stanford Science Fellows .

Launched as part of Stanford’s  Long-Range Vision  in 2020, the highly competitive SSF program for postdoctoral researchers aims to support scholars while advancing foundational science and fostering effective interdisciplinary approaches to fundamental questions through research. Providing top postdoctoral scholars access to critical resources is a key part of ensuring their success.

“One thing that is very special about this program is that it encompasses the entire spectrum of natural sciences, from biology, to physics, to chemistry, to astronomy, ecology, and mathematics,” said Christine-Jacobs Wagner , the Dennis Cunningham Professor at the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences. “We really encourage our fellows to take full advantage of all the amazing resources and expertise that exist at Stanford across schools and across facilities.”

Stanford Science Fellows frequently pursue research projects that are interdisciplinary, explained Jacobs-Wagner who, as a professor of biology in H&S and of microbiology and immunology at Stanford School of Medicine, is an interdisciplinary researcher herself.

“For example, a fellow might combine research that spans disciplines and research facilities at Stanford using the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory , where there is state-of-the-art cryo-electron microscopy, to examine image samples collected at Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve 'Ootchamin ' Ooyakma or at Hopkins Marine Station ,” Jacobs-Wagner said. “Or they might use advanced AI to study host–pathogen interactions, collaborating with research mentors at the School of Engineering and the School of Medicine . In fact, it's very common for our fellows to have more than one research mentor in different schools.”

Deepening our understanding of foundational science and fostering interdisciplinary approaches to research are central tenets of the program.

“The focus of the Stanford Science Fellows Program is on the fundamental research that leads to other discoveries, not on the applications of research,” said  Peter Michelson , the Luke Blossom Professor in H&S and faculty director of the SSF program. “Although in many cases the results do lead to important applications.”

These blue-sky ideas come from the fellows themselves, who are given the freedom to pursue their own research interests with the support of a faculty host.

“When researchers apply to the program, they are encouraged to propose their own vision for the project they want to pursue,” Michelson said. “It's not a top-down thing. The projects are really driven by the vision of the fellows.”

2024 Stanford Science Fellows

Mojgan Asadi researches the relationship between the structure and function of enzymes using quantum mechanics and molecular mechanics simulations. She will work with faculty host Steven Boxer , the Camille Dreyfus Professor of Chemistry in H&S, to investigate the use of vibrational Stark effect probes to study the catalytic activity and covalent inhibition of enzymes that are important targets of drug development.

Veronica Frans  is a quantitative ecologist who speaks six languages and emphasizes the use of local knowledge and community outreach in her work. She combines statistical modeling, ecological theory, and synthesis research to build accessible tools for conservation. She will work with faculty host  Fiorenza Micheli,  the David and Lucile Packard Professor of Marine Science in the Doerr School of Sustainability, to develop a new framework for predicting human–wildlife relationships under global change.

Yuanwei Li studies nanoparticles and their optical and mechanical properties. Her interdisciplinary work spans the fields of chemistry, nanophotonics, and materials science. She will work with faculty host Jennifer Dionne , associate professor of materials science and engineering in the School of Engineering, to develop new optical nanomaterials and molecular probes for biosensing and detection with applications in medical diagnostics and therapeutics.

Rafael Rivera-Lugo studies how bacterial diseases develop and progress (pathogenesis), host immune responses, and the importance of bacterial metabolism to pathogenesis. He will work with faculty host Christine Jacobs-Wagner to investigate how the microbiome influences Borrelia burgdorferi infection, the pathogen that causes Lyme disease. As a Puerto Rican and first-generation student, he cares deeply about promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in science.

Adam Shaw studies quantum computing at the scale of atoms. He uses lasers to trap and control individual atoms to study how we can exploit their quantum properties to perform simulations faster than any classical computer. He will work with faculty host Jon Simon , associate professor of physics and applied physics in H&S, to improve upon the platform used in his previous research to make it process information up to a million times faster.

This year’s cohort is the fifth since the program began in 2020, and it brings the total number of fellows to 39, representing the Schools of Humanities and Sciences, Engineering, Medicine, and  Sustainability . The researchers in the 2024 cohort are hosted by Stanford’s departments of  Bioengineering ,  Chemistry ,  Earth System Science ,  Mathematics , and  Physics .

Acknowledgements

Michelson is also a professor of physics; Boxer is also a faculty fellow at Sarafan ChEM-H  and is a member of Stanford Bio-X and of the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute ; Micheli is also a professor, by courtesy, of biology and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment ; Dionne is also an associate professor, by courtesy, of radiology, a senior fellow of the  Precourt Institute for Energy , and a member of Stanford Bio-X, the Cardiovascular Institute , and the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute; Jacobs-Wagner is an institute scholar at Sarafan ChEM-H and is also a member of Stanford Bio-X.

• Interdisciplinary

Rachel Jean-Baptiste awarded 2024 David H. Pinkney Prize

Joel Cabrita receives National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences book award

Students will explore Taylor Swift’s lyrics as literature in new course

Steven Boxer receives 2024 Ellis R. Lippincott Award

• Natural Sciences

© Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305

About Stanford GSB

• The Leadership
• Dean’s Updates
• School News & History
• Commencement
• Business, Government & Society
• Centers & Institutes
• Center for Entrepreneurial Studies
• Center for Social Innovation
• Stanford Seed

About the Experience

• Learning at Stanford GSB
• Experiential Learning
• Guest Speakers
• Entrepreneurship
• Social Innovation
• Communication
• Life at Stanford GSB
• Collaborative Environment
• Activities & Organizations
• Student Services
• Housing Options
• International Students

Full-Time Degree Programs

• Why Stanford MBA
• Academic Experience
• Financial Aid
• Why Stanford MSx
• Research Fellows Program
• See All Programs

Non-Degree & Certificate Programs

• Executive Education
• Stanford Executive Program
• Programs for Organizations
• The Difference
• Online Programs
• Stanford LEAD
• Seed Transformation Program
• Aspire Program
• Seed Spark Program
• Faculty Profiles
• Academic Areas
• Awards & Honors
• Conferences

Faculty Research

• Publications
• Working Papers
• Case Studies

Research Hub

• Research Labs & Initiatives
• Business Library
• Data, Analytics & Research Computing
• Behavioral Lab

Research Labs

• Cities, Housing & Society Lab
• Golub Capital Social Impact Lab

Research Initiatives

• Corporate Governance Research Initiative
• Corporations and Society Initiative
• Policy and Innovation Initiative
• Rapid Decarbonization Initiative
• Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative
• Value Chain Innovation Initiative
• Venture Capital Initiative
• Career & Success
• Climate & Sustainability
• Corporate Governance
• Culture & Society
• Finance & Investing
• Government & Politics
• Leadership & Management
• Markets & Trade
• Operations & Logistics
• Opportunity & Access
• Organizational Behavior
• Political Economy
• Social Impact
• Technology & AI
• Opinion & Analysis
• Email Newsletter

Welcome, Alumni

• Communities
• Digital Communities & Tools
• Regional Chapters
• Women’s Programs
• Identity Chapters
• Find Your Reunion
• Career Resources
• Job Search Resources
• Career & Life Transitions
• Programs & Services
• Career Video Library
• Alumni Education
• Research Resources
• Volunteering
• Alumni News
• Class Notes
• Alumni Voices
• Contact Alumni Relations
• Upcoming Events

Admission Events & Information Sessions

• MBA Program
• MSx Program
• PhD Program
• Alumni Events
• All Other Events

Jensen Huang on How to Use First-Principles Thinking to Drive Decisions

The founder and CEO of NVIDIA shares how reasoning has influenced each step of his career – from washing dishes at Denny's to being a leader in tech.

April 25, 2024

“You can learn how something can be done and then go back to first principles and ask yourself, ‘Given the conditions today, given my motivation, given the instruments, the tools, given how things have changed, how would I redo this? How would I reinvent this whole thing?’”

Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, started his career washing dishes at Denny’s. He then worked his way to busboy and eventually founded what is one of today’s most valuable companies. In this interview at Stanford GSB’s View From The Top event, founder and CEO Jensen Huang shares the stage with Shantam Jain, MBA ’24, to detail his experience founding NVIDIA, funding it, and finally, his views on AI.

Listen & Subscribe

Stanford GSB’s View From The Top is the dean’s premier speaker series. It launched in 1978 and is supported in part by the F. Kirk Brennan Speaker Series Fund.

During student-led interviews and before a live audience, leaders from around the world share insights on effective leadership, their personal core values, and lessons learned throughout their career.

Full Transcript

Note: Transcripts are generated by machine and lightly edited by humans. They may contain errors.

Jensen Huang: If you send me something and you want my input on it and I can be of service to you and in my review of it, share with you how I reasoned through it, I’ve made a contribution to you. I’ve made it possible to see how I reason through something. And by reasoning, as you know, how someone reasons through something empowers you. You go, “Oh my gosh. That’s how you reason through something like this.” It’s not as complicated as it seems. This is how you reason through something that’s super ambiguous. This is how you reason through something that’s incalculable. This is how you reason through something that seems to be very scary. Do you understand? So, I show people how to reason through things all the time.

Shatam Jain: That was Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA. Jensen visited Stanford Graduate School of Business, as part of View From The Top , a speaker series where students, like me, sit down to interview leaders from around the world. I’m Shantam Jain, an MBA student of the class of 2024. In our conversation, we discussed the key pillars of Jensen’s leadership philosophy and how he breaks down generative AI using first-principles thinking.

You’re listening to View From The Top, the podcast .

Shantam Jain: Jensen, this is such an honor. Thank you for being here.

Jensen Huang: I’m delighted to be here. Thank you.

Shantam Jain: In honor of your return to Stanford, I decided we’d start talking about the time when you first left. You joined LSI Logic, and that was one of the most exciting companies at the time. You’re building a phenomenal reputation with some of the biggest names in tech, and yet you decided to leave to become a founder. What motivated you?

Jensen Huang: Chris and Curtis. I was an engineer at LSI Logic, and Chris and Curtis were at Sun. And I was working with some of the brightest minds in computer science at the time, of all time, including [unintelligible] and others building workstations and graphics workstations and so on and so forth. And Chris and Curtis one day said that they’d like to leave Sun, and they’d like me to go figure out where they’re going to go leave for.

I had a great job, but they insisted that I figure out with them how to build a company. So, we hung out at Denny’s whenever they dropped by, which was, by the way, my alma mater, my first company. My first job before CEO was a dishwasher, and I did that very well.

Jensen Huang: So, anyways, we got together, and it was during the microprocessor revolution. This was 1993 and 1992 when we were getting together. The PC revolution was just getting going. You know that Windows ’95, obviously, which is the revolutionary version of Windows, didn’t even come to the market yet, and Pentium wasn’t even announced yet. This was all right before the PC revolution, and it was pretty clear that the microprocessor was going to be very important. And we thought, “Why don’t we build a company to go solve problems that a normal computer that is powered by general purpose computing can’t?” And so that became the company’s mission, to go build a computer, the type of computers that solve problems that normal computers can’t. And to this day, we’re focused on that.

And if you look at all the problems in the markets that we opened up as resolved, it’s things like computational drug design, weather simulation, materials’ design. These are all things that we’re really, really proud of — robotics, self-driving cars, autonomous software we call artificial intelligence. And then, of course, we drove the technology so hard that eventually the computational cost went to approximately zero, and it enabled a whole new way of developing software, where the computer wrote the software itself, artificial intelligence as we know it today. So, that was it; that was the journey.

Shantam Jain: Yeah. Thank you all for coming.

Well, these applications are on all of our minds today. Back then, the CEO of LSI Logic convinced his biggest investor, Don Valentine, to meet with you. He is obviously the founder of Sequoia. Now I can see a lot of founders here edging forward in anticipation. But how did you convince the most sought-after investor in Silicon Valley to invest in a team of first-time founders building a new product for a market that doesn’t even exist?

Jensen Huang: I didn’t know how to write a business plan. So I went to a bookstore, and back then, there were bookstores. And in the business book section, there was this book. And it was written by somebody I knew, Gordon Bell. And this book, I should go find it again, but it’s a very large book, and the book says, “How to Write a Business Plan.” That was a highly specific title for a very niche market. And it seems like he wrote it for 14 people, and I was one of them.

So, I bought the book. I should have known right away that it was a bad idea because Gordon is super smart. And super-smart people have a lot to say. I’m pretty sure Gordon wants to teach me how to write a business plan completely. So, I picked up this book, and it’s like 450 pages long.

Well, I never got through it, not even close. I flipped through it, a few pages. And I go, “You know what? By the time I’m done reading this thing, I’ll be out of business. I’ll be out of money. And Laurie and I only had about six months in the bank. And we had already Spencer, Madison and a dog. So, the five of us had to live off of whatever money we had in the bank, so I didn’t have much time.

So, instead of writing the business plan, I just went to talk to [Wilf Corey]. He called me one day, and he said, “Hey, you left the company. You didn’t even tell me what you were doing. I want you to come back and explain it to me.” And so, I went back and explained it to Wilf. And Wilf at the end of it said, “I have no idea what you said. That’s one of the worst elevator pitches I’ve ever heard.”

Jensen Huang: And then he picked up the phone, and he called Don Valentine. He called Don, and he said, “Don, I’m going to send a kid over. I want you to give him money.” He’s one of the best employees LSI Logic ever had. And so, the thing I learned is you can make up a great interview. You can even have a bad interview. But you can’t run away from your past, and so have a good past. Try to have a good past.

And in a lot of ways, I was serious when I said I was a good dishwasher. I was probably Denny’s best dishwasher. I planned my work, I was organized, I was mise-en-place, and then I washed the living daylights out of the dishes, and then they promoted me to busboy. I was certain I’m the best busboy Denny’s ever had. I never left a station emptyhanded. I never came back emptyhanded. I was very efficient.

So, anyways, eventually I became a CEO. I’m still working on being a good CEO.

Shantam Jain: Talking about being the best, you needed to be the best among 89 other companies that were funded after you build the same thing. And then with six to nine months of runway left, you realize that the initial vision was just not going to work. How did you decide what to do next to save the company when the cards were so stacked against you?

Jensen Huang: Well, we started this company called [unintelligible] Computing. And the question is, what is it for? What’s the killer app? That became our first great decision. And this is what Sequoia funded. The first great decision was the first killer app was going to be 3D graphics. And the technology was going to be 3D graphics. And the application was going to be videogames. At the time, 3D graphics was impossible to make cheap. It was million-dollar image generators from silicon graphics. And so, it was a million dollars, and it’s hard to make cheap. And the videogame market was [zero billion dollars]. So, you had this incredible technology that’s hard to commoditize and commercialize. And then you have this market that doesn’t exist. That intersection was the founding of our company. And I still remember when Don, at the end of my presentation, one of the things he said to me, which made a lot of sense back then; it makes a lot of sense today, he said, “Startups don’t invest in startups or startups don’t partner with startups.” And his point is that in order for NVIDIA to succeed, we needed another startup to succeed, and that other startup was electronic arts.

And then on the way out, he reminded me that electronic arts is CTO, is 14 years old and had to be driven to work by his mom. He just wanted to remind me that that’s who I’m relying on.

Jensen Huang: And then after that, he said, “If you lose my money, I’ll kill you.” And that was kind of my memories of that first meeting. But nonetheless, we created something. We went on the next several years to go create the gaming market for PCs. It took a long time to do so. We’re still doing it today. We realized that not only do you have to create the technology and invent a new way of doing computer graphics so that what was a million dollars is now 3, 400, 500 dollars that fits in the computer, and you have to go create this new market. So, we had to create technology, create markets.

The idea that company would create technology, create markets defines NVIDIA today. Almost everything we do, we create technology, we create markets. That’s the reason people call it a stack, an ecosystem, words like that, but that’s basically it — a décor for 30 years when NVIDIA realized we had to do is in order to create the conditions by which somebody could buy our products, we had to go invent this new market, and it’s the reason why we’re early in autonomous driving. It was the reason why we were early in deep learning. It’s the reason why we’re early in just about all these things including computational drug design and discovery. All these different areas we’re trying to create the market while we’re creating the technology.

Okay. Then we got going, and then Microsoft introduced a standard called Direct 3D, and that spawned off hundreds of companies. And we found ourselves a couple of years later competing with just about everybody. The thing that we invented the company, the technology we invented 3D graphics with, that consumerized 3D with turns out to be incompatible with Direct 3D.

So, we started this company. We had this 3D graphics thing, a million-dollar thing. We’re trying to make it consumerized, and so we invented all this technology. And then shortly after, it became incompatible, so we had to reset the company or go out of business. But we didn’t know how to build it the way that Microsoft had defined it. I remember a meeting on a weekend, and the conversation was, “We now have 89 competitors. I understand the way we do it is not right, but we don’t know how to do it the right way.”

Thankfully, there was another bookstore, and the bookstore was called [Fry’s Electronics]. I don’t know if it’s still here. I think I drove Madison, my daughter, on the weekend to Fry’s, and it was sitting right there, the open GL manual, which would define how silicon graphics did computer graphics. So, it was right there; it was like $68.00 a book. I had a couple hundred dollars. I bought three books. I took it back to the office, and I said, “Guys, I found it. Our future.” I had the three versions of it. I handed it out. It had a big, nice centerfold. The centerfold is the open GL pipeline, which is the computer graphics pipeline. And I handed it to the same geniuses that I founded the company with. And we implemented the open GL pipeline like nobody had ever implemented the open GL pipeline, and we built something the world had never seen.

So, a lot of lessons are right there. That moment in time for our company gave us so much confidence. And the reason for that is you can succeed in doing something, inventing a future, even if you were not informed about it at all. And that’s kind of my attitude about everything now. When somebody tells me about something and I’ve never heard of it before, or if I’ve heard of it and don’t understand how it works at all, my first thought is always, “How hard can it be? And it’s probably just a textbook away. You’re probably one archive paper away from figuring this out.”

So, I spent a lot of time reading archive papers. And it’s true. Now, of course, you can’t learn how somebody else does something and do it exactly the same way and hope to have a different outcome. But you can learn how something can be done and then go back to first principles and ask yourself, “Given the conditions today, given my motivation, given the instruments, the tools, given how things have changed, how would I redo this? How would I reinvent this whole thing? How would I design it? How would I build a car today? Would I build it incrementally from 1950’s and 1900’s? How would I build a computer today? How would I write software today” Does that make sense?

So, I go back to first principles all the time, even in the company today, and just reset ourselves, because the world has changed. The way we wrote software in the past, it was monolithic, and it’s designed for supercomputers, but now it’s this aggregated so on and so forth. How we think about software today, how we think about computers today, just always cause your company, always cause yourself to go back to first principles, and it creates lots and lots of opportunities.

Shantam Jain: The way you apply this technology tends to be revolutionary. You get all the momentum that you need to IPO and then some more, because you grow your revenue nine times in the next four years. But in the middle of all of this success, you decide to [pip] it a little bit, the focus of innovation happening at NVIDIA based on a phone call you have with this chemistry professor. Can you tell us about that phone call and how you connected the dots from what you heard to where you went?

Jensen Huang: I remember at the core, the company was pioneering a new way of doing computing. Computer graphics was the first application. But we always knew that there would be other applications, so image processing came, particle physics came, fluids came, so on and so forth, all kinds of interesting things that we wanted to do.

We made the processor more programmable so that we could express more algorithms, if you will. And then one day, we invented programmable shaders, which made all forms of imaging and computer graphics programmable. That was a great breakthrough, so we invented that.

On top of that, we tried to look for ways to express more sophisticated algorithms that could be computed on our processor, which is very different than a CPU. So, we created this thing called a CG. I think it was 2003 or so. C for GPUs. It predated [CUDA] by about three years.

The same person who wrote the textbook that saved the company, Mark [Kilgard], wrote that textbook. And so, CG was super cool. We wrote textbooks about it. We started teaching people how to use it. We developed tools and such. And then several researchers discovered it. Many of the researchers here, students here at Stanford were using it. Many of the engineers that then became engineers at NVIDIA were playing with it.

A couple of doctors at Mass General picked it up and used it for CT reconstruction. So, I flew out and saw them and said, “What are you guys doing with this thing?” And they told me about that. Then a computational, quantum chemist used it to express his algorithms.

So, I realized that there’s some evidence that people might want to use this. And it gave us incrementally more confidence that we ought to go do this, that this form of computing could solve problems that normal computers really can’t and reinforced our belief and kept us going.

Shantam Jain: Every time you heard something new, you really savored that surprise, and that seems to be a theme throughout your leadership at NVIDIA. It feels like you make these bets so far in advance of technology inflections that when the apple finally falls from the tree, you’re standing right there in your black leather jacket waiting to catch it.

Shantam Jain: How do you find the [conviction]?

Jensen Huang: It always seems like a diving catch. You do things based on core beliefs. We deeply believe that we could create a computer that solves problems that normal processing can’t do. There are limits to what a CPU can do. There are limits to what general purpose computing can do. And then there are interesting problems that we can go solve. The question is always — are those interesting problems only or can they also be interesting markets? Because if they’re not interesting markets, it’s not sustainable. And NVIDIA went through about a decade where we were investing in this future and the markets didn’t exist. There was only one market at the time; it was computer graphics.

For 10, 15 years, the markets that fuel NVIDIA today just didn’t exist. So how do you continue with all of the people around you, our company and NVIDIA’s management team and all of the amazing engineers that were there creating this future with me — all of your shareholders, your board of directors, your partners, you’re taking everybody with you, and there’s no evidence of a market. That is really, really challenging. The fact that the technology can solve problems, and the fact that you have research papers that are used, that are made possible because of it are interesting. But you’re always looking for that market. But nonetheless, before a market exists, you still need early indicators of future success.

We have this phrase in the company. There’s a phrase called “key performance indicators.” Unfortunately, KPIs are hard to understand. I find KPIs hard to understand. What’s a good KPI? A lot of people, when we look for KPIs, they go, “Gross margins.” That’s not a KPI; that’s a result. You’re looking for something that’s early indicators of future positive results and as early as possible. The reason for that is because you want that early sign that you’re going in the right direction.

So, we have this phrase that’s called, “EOIFS,” early indicators to EOIFS, early indicators of future success. And it helps people, because I was using it all the time, to give the company hope that, “Hey, look, we solved this problem, we solved that problem, we solved this problem.” The markets didn’t exist, but there were important problems, and that’s what the company’s about, to solve these problems. We want to be sustainable, and therefore, the markets have to exist at some point.

But you want to decouple the result from evidence that you’re doing the right thing, okay? So that’s how you kind of solve this problem of investing into something that’s very, very far away and having the conviction to stay on the road is to find as early as possible the indicators that you’re doing the right things. So, start with a core belief. Unless something changes your mind, you continue to believe in it. And look for early indicators of future success.

Shantam Jain: What are some of those early indicators that have been used by product teams at NVIDIA?

Jensen Huang: All kinds. I saw a paper. Long before I saw the paper, I met some people that needed my help on this thing called deep learning. At the time, I didn’t know what deep learning was. And they needed us to create a domain-specific language so that all of their algorithms could be expressed easily on our processors. And we created this thing called [Ku-DNN]. And it’s essentially the [SQL]. SQL is in-storage computing. This is neural-network computing, and we created a language, if you will, domain-specific language from that, kind of like the open GL of deep learning.

So, they needed us to do that so that they could express their mathematics. And they didn’t understand KUDO, but they understood the deep learning. So, we created this thing in the middle for them. And the reason why we did it was because these researchers had no money. This is kind of one of the great skills of our company, that you’re willing to do something even though the financial returns are completely non-existent or maybe very, very far out, even if you believed in it.

We ask ourselves, “Is this worthy work to do? Does this advance a field of science somewhere that matters?” Notice, this is something that I’ve been talking about since the very beginning of time. We find inspiration, not from the size of a market, but from the importance of the work, because the importance of the work is the early indicators of a future market. Nobody has to do a business case on it. Nobody has to show me a [PNL]. Nobody has to show me a financial forecast. Th only question is, “Is this important work?” And if we didn’t do it, would it happen without us?” Now if we didn’t do something and something could happen without us, it gives me tremendous joy, actually.

The reason for that is — could you imagine — the world got better, you didn’t have to lift a finger? That’s the definition of ultimate laziness. And in a lot of ways, you want that habit. And the reason for that is this — you want the company to be lazy about doing things that other people always do, can do. If somebody else can do it, let them do it. We should go select the things that if we didn’t do it, the world would fall apart. You have to convince yourself of that, “If I don’t do this, it won’t get done.” If that work is hard, and that work is impactful and important then it gives you a sense of purpose. Does that make sense? And so, our company has been selecting these projects. Deep learning was just one of them. And the first indicator of the success of that was this fuzzy cat that Andrew [Ang] came up with, and then Alex [Korchevsky] detected cats, not all the time, but successfully enough that it was, “This might take us somewhere.” And then we reasoned about the structure of deep learning, and we’re computer scientists, and we understand how things work. So, we convinced ourselves this could change everything. Anyhow, that’s an example.

Shantam Jain: So these selections that you’ve made, they’ve paid huge dividends both literally and figuratively. But you’ve had to steer the company through some very challenging times, like when it lost 80 percent of its market cap amid the financial crisis because Wall Street didn’t believe in your bet on ML. In times like these, how do you steer the company and keep the employees motivated at the task at hand?

Jensen Huang: My reaction during that time is the same reaction I had about this week. Earlier today, you asked me about this week. My pulse was exactly the same. This week is no different than last week or the week before that. So, the opposite of that, when you drop 80 percent, don’t get me wrong, when your share price drops 80 percent, it’s a little embarrassing, okay? You just want to wear a T-shirt that says, “It wasn’t my fault.”

But even more than that, you don’t want to get out of your bed, you don’t want to leave the house. All of that is true. But then you go back to just doing your job. I woke up at the same time. I prioritized my day in the same way. I go back to, “What do I believe?” You’ve got to gut check; always gut check back to the core — what do you believe? What are the most important things? Just check them off. Sometimes it’s helpful — family loves me? Okay, check, double check, right? So, you’ve just got to check it off, then you go back to your core and then go back to work. And then every conversation goes back to the core, keep the company focused back on the core. Do you believe in it? Did something change? The stock price changed, but did something else change? Did physics change? Did gravity change? Did all of the things that we assumed that we believed that led to our decision, did any of those things change? Because if those things changed, you’ve got to change everything. But if none of those things changed, you change nothing, keep on going. That’s how you do it.

Shantam Jain: In speaking with your employees, they say that —

Jensen Huang: And try to avoid the public.

Shantam Jain: [Laughs] In speaking with your employees, they’ve said that your leadership is —

Jensen Huang: Including the employees. I’m just kidding.

Jensen Huang: Leaders have to be seen, unfortunately. That’s the hard part. I was an electrical engineering student, and I was quite young when I went to school. When I went to college, I was still 16 years old, so I was young when I did everything. So I was a bit of an introvert. I’m shy. I don’t enjoy public speaking. I’m delighted to be here. I’m not suggesting that. But it’s not something that I do naturally. So, when things are challenging, it’s not easy to be in front of precisely the people that you care most about. And the reason for that is because could you imagine a company meeting with just our stock prices dropped by 80 percent? And the most important thing I have to do as the CEO is this, to come and face you, explain it. Partly, you’re not sure why. Partly, you’re not sure how long, how bad. You just don’t know these things. But you’ve still got to explain it, face all these people and you know what they’re thinking. Some of them were probably thinking, “We’re doomed.” Some people are probably thinking, “You’re an idiot.” And some people are probably thinking something else. So, there are a lot of things that people are thinking, and you know that they’re thinking those things, but you still have to get in front of them and do the hard work.

Shantam Jain: Maybe you can give those things, but yet not a single person of your leadership team left during times like this.

Jensen Huang: Unemployable.

That’s what I keep reminding them.

I’m just kidding. I’m surrounded by geniuses, utter geniuses, unbelievable. NVIDIA is well-known to have singularly the best management team on the planet. This is the deepest technology management team the world’s ever seen. I’m surrounded by a whole bunch of them, and they’re just geniuses — business teams, marketing teams, sales teams, and it’s just incredible — engineering teams, research teams, unbelievable.

Shantam Jain: Your employees say that your leadership style is very engaged. You have 50 direct reports. You encourage people across all parts of the organization to send you the top five things on their mind. And you constantly remind people that, “No task is beneath you.” Can you tell us why you’ve purposefully designed such a flat organization? And how should we be thinking about our organizations that we design in the future?

Jensen Huang: To me, no task is beneath me because, remember, I used to be a dishwasher, and I mean that. I used to clean toilets. I’ve cleaned a lot of toilets. I’ve cleaned more toilets than all of you combined, and some of them you just can’t unsee.

I don’t know what to tell you. That’s life. So, you can’t show me a task that’s beneath me. I’m not doing it only because of whether it’s beneath me or not beneath me. If you send me something and you want my input on it and I can be of service to you and in my review of it, share with you how I reasoned through it, I’ve made a contribution to you. I’ve made I possible to see how I reason through something. And by reasoning, as you know, how someone reasons through something empowers you. You go, “Oh my gosh. That’s how you reason through something like this.” It’s not as complicated as it seems. This is how you reason through something that’s super ambiguous. This is how you reason through something that’s incalculable. This is how you reason through something that seems to be very scary. Do you understand?

So, I show people how to reason through things all the time — strategy things, how to forecast something, how to break a problem down, and you’re just empowering people all over the place. And so that’s how I see it. If you send me something and you want me to help review it, I’ll do my best, and I’ll show you how I would do it.

In the process of doing that, of course, I learned a lot from you. Is that right? You gave me a seed of a lot of information. I learned a lot, and so I feel rewarded by the process.

It does take a lot of energy sometimes because in order to add value to somebody and they’re incredibly smart as a starting point and I’m surrounded by incredibly smart people, you have to at least get to their plane, you know? You have to get into their headspace. And that’s really hard, and that takes just an enormous amount of emotional and intellectual energy, and so I feel exhausted after I work on things like that.

I’m surrounded by a lot of great people. CEOs should have the most of the reports by definition because the people that reports to the CEO requires the least amount of management. It makes no sense to me that CEOs have so few people reporting to them except for one fact that I know to be true. The knowledge, the information of a CEO is supposedly so valuable, so secretive, you can only share it with two other people or three.

And their information is so invaluable, so incredibly secretive that they can only share it with a couple more. Well, I don’t believe in a culture, in an environment where the information that you possess is the reason why you have power. I would like us all to contribute to the company. And our position in the company should have something to do with our ability to reason through complicated things, lead other people to achieve greatness, inspire, empower other people, support other people. Those are the reasons why the management team exists, in service of all of the other people that work at the company, to create the conditions by which all of these amazing people volunteer to come work for you instead of all of the other amazing, high-tech companies around the world. They elected, they volunteered to work for you. And so you should create the conditions by which they can do their life’s work, which is my mission.

You probably heard it. I’ve said it pretty clearly, and I believe that. What my job is is very simply to create the conditions by which you can do your life’s work. So, how do I do that? What does that condition look like? Well, that condition should result in a great deal of empowerment. You can only be empowered if you understand the circumstance; isn’t that right? You have to understand the context of the situation you’re in in order for you to come up with great ideas. And so, I have to create a circumstance where you understand the context, which means you have to be informed. And the best way to be informed is for there to be as little layers of information mutilation, right, between us. And so that’s the reason why it’s very often that I’m reasoning through things like in an audience like this. I say, first of all, these are the beginning facts. These are the data that we have. This is how we reason through it. These are some of the assumptions. These are some of the unknowns. These are some of the knowns. So, you reason though it.

Now you’ve created an organization that’s highly empowered. NVIDIA is 30,000 people. We’re the smallest large company in the world. We’re a tiny little company. But every employee is so empowered, and they’re making smart decisions on my behalf every single day. And the reason for that is because they understand my condition. I’m very transparent with people. And I believe that I can trust you with the information.

Oftentimes, the information is hard to hear, and the situations are complicated, but I trust that you can handle it. A lot of people hear me say, “You’re adults here. You can handle this.” Sometimes they’re not really adults, and they just graduated. I’m just kidding. I know that when I first graduated, I was barely an adult. But I was fortunate that I was trusted with important information. So, I want to do that. I want to create the conditions for people to do that.

Shantam Jain: I do want to now address the topic that is on everybody’s mind, AI. Last week, you said that generative AI and accelerated computing have hit the tipping point. So as this technology becomes more mainstream, what are the applications that you personally are most excited about.

Jensen Huang: Well, you have to go back to first principles and ask yourself, “What is generative AI? What happened?” What happened was we now have the ability to have software that can understand something. First of all, we digitized everything. Like, for example, gene sequencing — digitized genes. But what does it mean? That sequence of genes, what does it mean? We’ve digitized amino acids, but what does it mean?

So, we now have the ability to digitize words. We digitize sounds. We digitize images and videos. We digitize a lot of things. But what does it mean? We now have the ability through a lot of study and a lot of data and from patterns in relationships, we now understand what they mean. Not only do we understand what they mean, we can translate between them because we learned about the meaning of these things in the same world; we didn’t learn about them separately. So, we learned about speech and words and paragraphs and vocabulary in the same context. So, we’ve found correlations between them, and they’re all registered, if you will, registered to each other.

And so now not, only do we understand the meaning of each modality, we can understand how to translate between them. And so for obvious things, you could caption video to text; that’s captioning, text two images [mid journey], text-to-text, Chat GPT, amazing things. And so we now know that we understand meaning, and we can translate. The translation of something is generation of information. And all of a sudden, you have to take a step back and ask yourself, “What is the implication in every single layer of everything that we do?” So, I’m exercising in front of you, I’m reasoning in front of you, the same thing I did 15 years ago when I first saw Alex some 13, 14 years ago.

How I reasoned through it, what did I see? How interesting. What can it do? Very cool. But then, most importantly, what does it mean? What does it mean to every single layer of computing because we’re in a world of computing. So, what it means is that the way that we process information fundamentally will be different in the future. That’s when NVIDIA builds chips and systems. The way we write software will be fundamentally different in the future. The type of software we’ll be able to write in the future will be different, new applications. And then also the processing of those applications will be different. What was historically a retrieval-based model where information was prerecorded, if you will, almost. We wrote the text, prerecorded, and we retrieved it based on some recommender system algorithm. In the future, some seed of information will be the starting point. We call them prompts, as you guys know, and then we generate the rest of it. And so, the future of computing will be highly generated.

Well let me give you an example of what’s happening. For example, we’re having a conversation right now. Very little of the information I’m conveying to you is retrieved. Most of it is generated. It’s called intelligence. So, in the future, we’re going to have a lot more generative — our computers will perform in that way. It’s going to be highly generative instead of highly retrieval-based.

Then you go back and you’re going to ask yourself — now for entrepreneurs you’re going to ask yourself what industries will be disrupted? Therefore, will we think about networking the same way? Will we think about storage the same way? Will we be as abusive of Internet traffic as we are today? Probably not. Notice we’re having a conversation right now, and I don’t have to get in my car every question. So, we don’t have to be as abusive of transformation/information/transporting as we used to.

What’s going to be more? What’s going to be less? What kind of applications, etcetera, etcetera? So, you can go through the entire industrial spread and ask yourself what’s going to get disrupted, what’s going to be different, what’s going to get [new], so on and so forth.

And that reasoning starts from what is happening? What is generative AI? Foundationally, what is happening? Go back to first principles with all things. There was something I was going to tell you about organization. You asked the question, and I forgot to answer it. The way you create an organization by the way someday, don’t worry about how other companies’ org charts look. You start from first principles. Remember what an organization is designed to do.

The organizations of the past, there’s a king/CEO, and then you have all the royal subjects, the royal court and then east out. And then you keep working your way down. Eventually, they’re employees. The reason why it was designed that way is because they wanted the employees to have as little information as possible because their fundamental purpose of the soldiers is to die in the field of battle, to die without asking questions. You guys know this.

I only have 30,000 employees. I would like none of them to die. I would like them to question everything. Does that make sense? And so the way you organized in the past and the way you organize today is very different.

Second, the question is what does NVIDIA build? An organization is designed so that we can build whatever it is we build better. And so if we all build different things, why are we organized the same way? Why would this organizational machinery be exactly the same irrespective of what you built? It doesn’t make any sense. You build computers, you organize this way. You build healthcare services, you build exactly the same way. It makes no sense whatsoever. So you had to go back to first principles, just ask yourself, “What kind of machinery? What is the input? What is the output? What are the properties of this environment? What is the forest that this animal has to live in? What are the characteristics? Is it stable most of the time? Are you trying to squeeze out the last drop of water or is it changing all the time, being attacked by everybody?”

So you’ve got to understand, you’re the CEO. Your job is to architect this company. That’s my first job, to create the conditions by which you can do your life’s work, and the architecture has to be right, and so you have to go back to first principles and think about those things.

I was fortunate that when I was 29 years old, I had the benefit of taking a step back and asking myself, “How would I build this company for the future and what would it look like? What’s the operating system, which is called culture? What kind of behavior do we encourage, enhance, and what do we discourage and not enhance and so on and so forth? Anyways.

Shantam Jain: I want to save time for audience questions. But this year’s theme from you from the top is “Redefining Tomorrow.” And one question we’ve asked all of our guests is, Jensen, as the cofounder and CEO of NVIDIA, if you were to close your eyes and magically change one thing about tomorrow, what would it be?

Jensen Huang: Were we supposed to think about this in advance?

Jensen Huang: I’m going to give you a horrible answer. I don’t know that it’s one thing. Look, there are a lot of things that we don’t control. There are a lot of things we don’t control. Your job is to make a unique contribution. Live a life of purpose, to do something that nobody else in the world would do or can do, to make a unique contribution so that in the event that after you are done, everybody says the world was better because you were here. So, I think, to me, I live my life kind of like this. I go forward in time, and I look backwards. So, you asked me a question that’s exactly from a computer vision pose perspective, exactly the opposite of how I think. I never look forward from where I am. I go forward in time and look backwards. And the reason for that is it’s easier. I would look backwards and kind of read my history. We did this and we did it that way and we [unintelligible] that problem down. Does that make sense?

So, it’s a little bit like how you guys solve problems. You figured out what is the end result that you’re looking for and you work backwards to achieve it. I imagine NVIDIA making a unique contribution to advancing the future of computing, which is the single most important instrument of all humanity. Now it’s not about our self-importance, but this is just what we’re good at, and it’s incredibly hard to do. And we believe we can make an absolute unique contribution. It’s taken us 31 years to be here, and we’re still just beginning our journey, and so this is insanely hard to do.

And when I look backwards, I believe that we’re going to be remembered as a company that kind of changed everything, not because we went out and changed everything through all the things that we said, but because we did this one thing that was insanely hard to do that we’re incredibly good at doing that we love doing, we did for a long time.

Female Voice: I’m part of the GSB lead. I graduated in 2023. So, my question is, how do you see your company in the next decade as what challenges do you see your company would face and how you are positioned for that?

Jensen Huang: First of all, can I just tell you what’s going on through my head? As you say what challenges, the list that flew by my head was so large that I was trying to figure out what to select. Now the honest truth is that when you asked that question, most of the challenges that showed up for me were technical challenges. And the reason for that is because that was my morning. If you had chosen yesterday, it might have been market creation challenges. There were some markets that, gosh, I just desperately would love to create. Can’t we just do it already? But we can’t do it alone. NVIDIA is a technology platform company. We’re here in service of a whole bunch of other companies so that they could realize, if you will, our hopes and dreams through them.

So, some of the things I would love, I would love for the world of biology to be at a point where it’s kind of like the world of chip design 40 years ago, computer-aided and designed, EDA that entire industry really made possible for us today. And I believe we’re going to make possible for them tomorrow. Computer-aided drug design — because we’re able to now represent genes and proteins and even cells now, very, very close to be able to represent and understand the meaning of a cell, combination of a whole bunch of genes. What does a cell mean? It’s kind of like, what does a paragraph mean? If we could understand a cell like we understand a paragraph, imagine what we could do.

So, I’m anxious for that to happen. I’m kind of excited about that. There are some that I’m just excited about that I know we’re around the corner on, for example, humanoid robotics. They’re very, very close around the corner. And the reason for that is because if you can tokenize and understand speech, why can’t you tokenize and understand manipulation? So these kind of computer science techniques, once you figure something out, you ask yourself, “Well, if I do that, why can’t I do that?” So I’m excited about those kinds of things. So that challenge is kind of a happy challenge.

Some of the other challenges of course are industrial and geopolitical and they’re social, but you’ve heard all that stuff before. These are all true, you know? The social issues in the world, the geopolitical issues in the world, why can’t we just get along, things in the world, why do I have to say those kinds of things in the world? Why do we have to say those things and then amplify them in the world? Why do we have to judge people so much in the world? All those things, you guys all know that. I don’t have to say those things over again.

Jose: My name’s Jose. I’m a Class of 2023 from GSB. My question is, are you worried at all about the pace at which we’re developing AI, and do you believe that any sort of regulation might be needed? Thank you.

Jensen Huang: The answer is yes and no. You know the greatest breakthrough in modern AI, of course, deep learning, it enabled great progress. But another incredible breakthrough is something humans know and we practiced all the time, and we just invented it for language models called grounding — reinforcement learning to human feedback. I provide reinforcement learning human feedback every day. That’s my job. And for the parents in the room, you’re providing reinforcement learning human feedback all the time, okay? Now we just figured out how to do that at a systematic level for artificial intelligence.

There are a whole bunch of other technologies necessary to guardrail, finetune, ground, for example, how do I generate tokens that obey the laws of physics? Right now, things are floating in space and doing things, and they don’t obey the laws of physics. That requires technology. Guard-railing requires technology. Finetuning requires technology. Alignment requires technology. Safety requires technology. The reason why planes are so safe is because all of the autopilot systems are surrounded by diversity and redundancy and all kinds of different functional safety and active safety systems that were invented.

I need all of that to be invented much, much faster. You also know that the border between cybersecurity and artificial intelligence is going to become blurrier and blurrier, and we need technology to advance very, very quickly in the area of cybersecurity in order to protect us from artificial intelligence. So, in a lot of ways, we need technology to go faster, a lot faster.

Regulation — there are two types of regulation. There’s social regulation; I don’t know what to do about that. But there’s product and services regulation; I know exactly what to do about that. So the FAA, the FDA, [NTSA], you name it, all the F’s and all the N’s and the FCCs, they all have regulations for products and services that have particular use cases, bar exams and doctors and so on and so forth. You all have qualification exams. You all have standards that you have to reach. You all have to continuously be certified, accountants and so on and so forth. Whether it’s a product or a service, there are lots and lots of regulations. Please do not add a super regulation that cuts across. The regulator who’s regulating accounting should not be the regulator that regulates a doctor.

I love accountants, but if I ever need open heart surgery, the fact that they can close books is interesting, but not sufficient. So I would like all of those fields that already have products and services to also enhance their regulations in the context of AI. But I left out this one very big one, which is the social implication of AI, and how do you deal with that? I don’t have great answers for that. But enough people are talking about it.

It’s important to subdivide all of this into chunks; does that make sense, so that we don’t become super-hyper-focused on this one thing at the expense of a whole bunch of routine things that we could have done, and as a result, people are getting killed by cars and planes. It doesn’t make any sense. We should make sure that we do the right things there, very practical things. May I take one more question?

Shantam Jain: Well, we have a set of rapid-fire questions for you as [unintelligible] [clinician].

Jensen Huang: Okay. I was trying to avoid that.

Jensen Huang: All right. Fire away.

Shantam Jain: Well, your first job was at Denny’s. They now have a booth dedicated to you. What was your fondest memory of working there?

Jensen Huang: My second job was AMD by the way. Is there a booth dedicated to me there? I’m just kidding.

I loved my job there; I did. I loved it. It was a great company.

Shantam Jain: If there was a worldwide shortage of black leather jackets, what would we see you wearing?

Jensen Huang: No, I’ve got a large reservoir of black jackets.

I’ll be the only person who is not concerned.

Shantam Jain: You spoke a lot about textbooks. If you had to write one, what would it be called?

Jensen Huang: I wouldn’t write one.

You’re asking me a hypothetical question that has no possibility of …

Shantam Jain: That’s fair. Finally, if you could share one parting piece of advice to broadcast across Stanford, what would it be?

Jensen Huang: It’s not a word, but have a core belief. Gut check it every day. Pursue it with all your might. Pursue it for a very long time. Surround yourself with people that you love, and take ‘em on that ride. So, that’s the story of NVIDIA.

Shantam Jain: Jensen, this last hour has been a treat. Thank you for spending it with us.

Jensen Huang: Thank you very much.

Shantam Jain: You’ve been listening to View From The Top, the podcast , a production of Stanford Graduate School of Business. This interview was conducted by me, Shantam Jain, of the MBA Class of 2024. Lily Sloane composed our theme music. Michael Reilly and Jenny Luna produced this episode. Find this series on our YouTube channel or on our website at gsb.stanford.edu . Follow us on social media @stanfordgsb.

For media inquiries, visit the Newsroom .

Explore More

Why investors throw money at eccentric ceos, the function of friction: how to use obstacles to your advantage, class takeaways — people analytics, editor’s picks.

February 09, 2023 Tristan Walker, MBA ’10,“Values Are Universal” The founder and CEO of Walker & Company shares lessons from the most challenging, and most rewarding, years of his career.

December 13, 2023 Neal Mohan, MBA ’05, From CEOs to Content Creators: Be True To Yourself The CEO of YouTube shares that, despite the power of algorithms, successful content still stems from humans and their authenticity.

June 09, 2022 Dara Treseder, MBA ’14: “If You Stand For Everything, You Stand For Nothing” Peloton VP shares why defining purpose, whether for a brand or for yourself, is the jumping-off point for business.

• Priorities for the GSB's Future
• See the Current DEI Report
• Supporting Data
• Research & Insights
• Share Your Thoughts
• Search Fund Primer
• Teaching & Curriculum
• Affiliated Faculty
• Faculty Advisors
• Louis W. Foster Resource Center
• Defining Social Innovation
• Impact Compass
• Global Health Innovation Insights
• Faculty Affiliates
• Student Awards & Certificates
• Changemakers
• Dean Jonathan Levin
• Dean Garth Saloner
• Dean Robert Joss
• Dean Michael Spence
• Dean Robert Jaedicke
• Dean Rene McPherson
• Dean Arjay Miller
• Dean Ernest Arbuckle
• Dean Jacob Hugh Jackson
• Dean Willard Hotchkiss
• Faculty in Memoriam
• Stanford GSB Firsts
• Certificate & Award Recipients
• Teaching Approach
• Analysis and Measurement of Impact
• The Corporate Entrepreneur: Startup in a Grown-Up Enterprise
• Data-Driven Impact
• Designing Experiments for Impact
• Digital Business Transformation
• The Founder’s Right Hand
• Marketing for Measurable Change
• Product Management
• Public Policy Lab: Financial Challenges Facing US Cities
• Public Policy Lab: Homelessness in California
• Lab Features
• Curricular Integration
• View From The Top
• Formation of New Ventures
• Managing Growing Enterprises
• Startup Garage
• Explore Beyond the Classroom
• Stanford Venture Studio
• Summer Program
• Workshops & Events
• The Five Lenses of Entrepreneurship
• Leadership Labs
• Executive Challenge
• Arbuckle Leadership Fellows Program
• Selection Process
• Training Schedule
• Time Commitment
• Learning Expectations
• Post-Training Opportunities
• Who Should Apply
• Introductory T-Groups
• Leadership for Society Program
• Certificate
• 2023 Awardees
• 2022 Awardees
• 2021 Awardees
• 2020 Awardees
• 2019 Awardees
• 2018 Awardees
• Social Management Immersion Fund
• Stanford Impact Founder Fellowships and Prizes
• Stanford Impact Leader Prizes
• Social Entrepreneurship
• Stanford GSB Impact Fund
• Economic Development
• Energy & Environment
• Stanford GSB Residences
• Environmental Leadership
• Stanford GSB Artwork
• A Closer Look
• California & the Bay Area
• Voices of Stanford GSB
• Business & Beneficial Technology
• Business & Sustainability
• Business & Free Markets
• Business, Government, and Society Forum
• Get Involved
• Second Year
• Global Experiences
• JD/MBA Joint Degree
• MA Education/MBA Joint Degree
• MD/MBA Dual Degree
• MPP/MBA Joint Degree
• MS Computer Science/MBA Joint Degree
• MS Electrical Engineering/MBA Joint Degree
• MS Environment and Resources (E-IPER)/MBA Joint Degree
• Academic Calendar
• Clubs & Activities
• LGBTQ+ Students
• Military Veterans
• Minorities & People of Color
• Partners & Families
• Students with Disabilities
• Student Support
• Residential Life
• Student Voices
• MBA Alumni Voices
• A Week in the Life
• Career Support
• Employment Outcomes
• Cost of Attendance
• Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program
• Yellow Ribbon Program
• BOLD Fellows Fund
• Application Process
• Loan Forgiveness
• Contact the Financial Aid Office
• Evaluation Criteria
• GMAT & GRE
• English Language Proficiency
• Personal Information, Activities & Awards
• Professional Experience
• Letters of Recommendation
• Optional Short Answer Questions
• Application Fee
• Reapplication
• Deferred Enrollment
• Joint & Dual Degrees
• Entering Class Profile
• Event Schedule
• Ambassadors
• New & Noteworthy
• Ask a Question
• See Why Stanford MSx
• Is MSx Right for You?
• MSx Stories
• Leadership Development
• Career Advancement
• Career Change
• How You Will Learn
• Admission Events
• Personal Information
• Information for Recommenders
• GMAT, GRE & EA
• English Proficiency Tests
• After You’re Admitted
• Daycare, Schools & Camps
• U.S. Citizens and Permanent Residents
• Requirements
• Requirements: Behavioral
• Requirements: Quantitative
• Requirements: Macro
• Requirements: Micro
• Annual Evaluations
• Field Examination
• Research Activities
• Research Papers
• Dissertation
• Oral Examination
• Current Students
• Education & CV
• International Applicants
• Statement of Purpose
• Reapplicants
• Application Fee Waiver
• Deadline & Decisions
• Job Market Candidates
• Academic Placements
• Stay in Touch
• Faculty Mentors
• Current Fellows
• Standard Track
• Fellowship & Benefits
• Group Enrollment
• Program Formats
• Developing a Program
• Diversity & Inclusion
• Strategic Transformation
• Program Experience
• Contact Client Services
• Campus Experience
• Live Online Experience
• Silicon Valley & Bay Area
• Digital Credentials
• Faculty Spotlights
• Participant Spotlights
• Eligibility
• International Participants
• Stanford Ignite
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Operations, Information & Technology
• Classical Liberalism
• The Eddie Lunch
• Accounting Summer Camp
• Videos, Code & Data
• California Econometrics Conference
• California Quantitative Marketing PhD Conference
• California School Conference
• China India Insights Conference
• Homo economicus, Evolving
• Political Economics (2023–24)
• Scaling Geologic Storage of CO2 (2023–24)
• A Resilient Pacific: Building Connections, Envisioning Solutions
• Adaptation and Innovation
• Changing Climate
• Civil Society
• Climate Impact Summit
• Climate Science
• Corporate Carbon Disclosures
• Earth’s Seafloor
• Environmental Justice
• Operations and Information Technology
• Organizations
• Sustainability Reporting and Control
• Taking the Pulse of the Planet
• Urban Infrastructure
• Watershed Restoration
• Junior Faculty Workshop on Financial Regulation and Banking
• Ken Singleton Celebration
• Marketing Camp
• Quantitative Marketing PhD Alumni Conference
• Presentations
• Theory and Inference in Accounting Research
• Stanford Closer Look Series
• Quick Guides
• Core Concepts
• Journal Articles
• Glossary of Terms
• Faculty & Staff
• Researchers & Students
• Research Approach
• Charitable Giving
• Financial Health
• Government Services
• Workers & Careers
• Short Course
• Adaptive & Iterative Experimentation
• Incentive Design
• Social Sciences & Behavioral Nudges
• Bandit Experiment Application
• Conferences & Events
• Reading Materials
• Energy Entrepreneurship
• Faculty & Affiliates
• SOLE Report
• Responsible Supply Chains
• Current Study Usage
• Pre-Registration Information
• Participate in a Study
• Founding Donors
• Location Information
• Participant Profile
• Network Membership
• Program Impact
• Collaborators
• Entrepreneur Profiles
• Company Spotlights
• Seed Transformation Network
• Responsibilities
• Current Coaches
• How to Apply
• Meet the Consultants
• Meet the Interns
• Intern Profiles
• Collaborate
• Research Library
• News & Insights
• Program Contacts
• Databases & Datasets
• Research Guides
• Consultations
• Research Workshops
• Career Research
• Research Data Services
• Course Reserves
• Course Research Guides
• Material Loan Periods
• Fines & Other Charges
• Document Delivery
• Interlibrary Loan
• Equipment Checkout
• Print & Scan
• MBA & MSx Students
• PhD Students
• Other Stanford Students
• Faculty Assistants
• Research Assistants
• Stanford GSB Alumni
• Telling Our Story
• Staff Directory
• Site Registration
• Alumni Directory
• Alumni Email
• Privacy Settings & My Profile
• Success Stories
• The Story of Circles
• Support Women’s Circles
• Stanford Women on Boards Initiative
• Alumnae Spotlights
• Insights & Research
• Industry & Professional
• Entrepreneurial Commitment Group
• Recent Alumni
• Half-Century Club
• Fall Reunions
• Spring Reunions
• MBA 25th Reunion
• Half-Century Club Reunion
• Faculty Lectures
• Ernest C. Arbuckle Award
• Alison Elliott Exceptional Achievement Award
• ENCORE Award
• Excellence in Leadership Award
• John W. Gardner Volunteer Leadership Award
• Robert K. Jaedicke Faculty Award
• Jack McDonald Military Service Appreciation Award
• Jerry I. Porras Latino Leadership Award
• Tapestry Award
• Student & Alumni Events
• Executive Recruiters
• Interviewing
• Land the Perfect Job with LinkedIn
• Negotiating
• Elevator Pitch
• Email Best Practices
• Resumes & Cover Letters
• Self-Assessment
• Whitney Birdwell Ball
• Margaret Brooks
• Bryn Panee Burkhart
• Margaret Chan
• Ricki Frankel
• Peter Gandolfo
• Cindy W. Greig
• Natalie Guillen
• Carly Janson
• Sloan Klein
• Sherri Appel Lassila
• Stuart Meyer
• Tanisha Parrish
• Virginia Roberson
• Philippe Taieb
• Michael Takagawa
• Terra Winston
• Johanna Wise
• Debbie Wolter
• Rebecca Zucker
• Complimentary Coaching
• Changing Careers
• Work-Life Integration
• Career Breaks
• Flexible Work
• Encore Careers
• D&B Hoovers
• Data Axle (ReferenceUSA)
• EBSCO Business Source
• Global Newsstream
• Market Share Reporter
• ProQuest One Business
• Student Clubs
• Entrepreneurial Students
• Stanford GSB Trust
• Alumni Community
• How to Volunteer
• Springboard Sessions
• Consulting Projects
• 2020 – 2029
• 2010 – 2019
• 2000 – 2009
• 1990 – 1999
• 1980 – 1989
• 1970 – 1979
• 1960 – 1969
• 1950 – 1959
• 1940 – 1949
• Service Areas
• ACT History
• ACT Awards Celebration
• ACT Governance Structure
• Building Leadership for ACT
• Individual Leadership Positions
• Leadership Role Overview
• Purpose of the ACT Management Board
• Contact ACT
• Business & Nonprofit Communities
• Reunion Volunteers
• Ways to Give
• Fiscal Year Report
• Business School Fund Leadership Council
• Planned Giving Options
• Planned Giving Benefits
• Planned Gifts and Reunions
• Legacy Partners
• Giving News & Stories
• Giving Deadlines
• Development Staff
• Submit Class Notes
• Class Secretaries
• Board of Directors
• Health Care
• Sustainability
• Class Takeaways
• All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions
• If/Then: Business, Leadership, Society
• Grit & Growth
• Think Fast, Talk Smart
• Spring 2022
• Spring 2021
• Autumn 2020
• Summer 2020
• Winter 2020
• In the Media
• For Journalists
• DCI Fellows
• Other Auditors
• Academic Calendar & Deadlines
• Course Materials
• Entrepreneurial Resources
• Campus Drive Grove
• Campus Drive Lawn
• CEMEX Auditorium
• King Community Court
• Seawell Family Boardroom
• Stanford GSB Bowl
• Stanford Investors Common
• Town Square
• Vidalakis Courtyard
• Vidalakis Dining Hall
• Catering Services
• Policies & Guidelines
• Reservations
• Contact Faculty Recruiting
• Lecturer Positions
• Postdoctoral Positions
• Accommodations
• CMC-Managed Interviews
• Recruiter-Managed Interviews
• Virtual Interviews
• Campus & Virtual
• Search for Candidates
• Think Globally
• Recruiting Calendar
• Recruiting Policies
• Full-Time Employment
• Summer Employment
• Entrepreneurial Summer Program
• Global Management Immersion Experience
• Social-Purpose Summer Internships
• Process Overview
• Project Types
• Client Eligibility Criteria
• Client Screening
• ACT Leadership
• Social Innovation & Nonprofit Management Resources
• Develop Your Organization’s Talent
• Centers & Initiatives
• Student Fellowships

Accessibility Tools

Highlight links, change contrast, increase text size, increase letter spacing, readability bar, dyslexia friendly font, increase cursor size, csis doctoral candidate named a stanford science fellow.

• Apr 23, 2024

PhD candidate Veronica Frans of MSU’s Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability has been named as one of five award-winning scholars selected as  Stanford Science Fellows .

The highly competitive Stanford Science Fellows program for postdoctoral researchers aims to support scholars while advancing foundational science and fostering effective interdisciplinary approaches to fundamental questions through research.

Frans is a quantitative ecologist who speaks six languages and emphasizes the use of local knowledge and community outreach in her work. She combines statistical modeling, ecological theory, and synthesis research to build accessible tools for conservation. “Veronica has applied her considerable talents, passion, enthusiasm, skills and experiences to address significant global challenges and opportunities in how people and nature can coexist and thrive,” said CSIS Director Jianguo “Jack” Liu , Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability and her doctoral advisor. “We are very proud of this latest achievement, knowing she will bring a wonderful set of skills and energy to this new adventure.”

Frans is a member of MSU’s Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior Program, and of the Community Engaged Scholarship, Spatial Ecology and Modeling Environmental and Social Systems certification programs. She is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and University Enrichment Fellow. She is also part of the Christopher Klausmeier and Elena Litchman lab at MSU's Kellogg Biological Station.

At Stanford, Frans will work with faculty host  Fiorenza Micheli , the David and Lucile Packard Professor of Marine Science in the Doerr School of Sustainability, to develop a new framework for predicting human-wildlife relationships under global change.

It will expand on her deep interests while working at MSU. In 2022 she published an article in The Conversation reflecting on the realities of successes in wildlife conservation, based on her award-winning cover article in  Methods in Ecology and Evolution . Her research has also gained much public attention, being featured in The New York Times and Washington Post . Her newest paper “Gaps and opportunities in modeling human influence on species distributions in the Anthropocene” is in press at the high-impact international journal, Nature Ecology & Evolution .

As a science communicator, Frans has explored environmental stewardship and its ties to Christianity. She is a public speaker for BioLogos , a science advocacy organization founded by Francis Collins, the former director of the National Institutes of Health and former science advisor to President Joe Biden.

“One thing that is very special about this program is that it encompasses the entire spectrum of natural sciences, from biology, to physics, to chemistry, to astronomy, ecology, and mathematics,” said  Christine-Jacobs Wagner , the Dennis Cunningham Professor at the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences. “We really encourage our fellows to take full advantage of all the amazing resources and expertise that exist at Stanford across schools and across facilities.”

Read more in the  Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability .

Latest News