One of the gifts of boundary crossers is being able to see patterns across disciplines. Iagnemma illustrates this with his description of the creative process, as it applies to science and writing:

"The creative process is quite similar in both research—I think any type of research—and writing. Both start with a blank page and progress through formulating ideas and concepts, to refining these ideas, to finally getting the details right. So it’s a process of increasingly structured creativity. And I’ve found that you get the same "micro-satisfactions" when you get individual elements right, and you get the same rush completing a major research task and completing a story. It’s an uncanny similarity."

Boundary crossers not only see patterns across disciplines, but they are able to leverage what they know from one world to improve what happens in another world:

"When I first started writing, I didn’t write about scientists at all. I think I wanted a break from that part of my world. But when I did start writing about researchers, I found the work that came out was much better than anything I’d ever done. And I think it was because I had a real investment and interest and deep knowledge of the material, of some of the issues that drive these kinds of people.

At this point, I can’t imagine not writing about researchers, because I’m able to find a little bit of myself in every character I write about. And that’s, I think, the key to good writing."

Boundary crossers are  ideally suited to explore the intersection of two or more worlds. Iagnemma talks about the natural questions that come from scientific research and fiction writing:

"It is one of the central questions of my fiction, this coexistence of reason and passion, and the points in life where reason and passion collide. Research is a great vehicle to investigate it, because you have, on the surface, this rational, analytical discipline. But you also have people who are so invested in the research, so wrapped up in it, that they become extremely passionate. It’s an interesting dichotomy."

And finally, I love how Iagnemma talks about his life as a "slash," where it’s not about either/or but rather both/and:

"[Being a researcher and a writer are] different forms of enjoyment. Human beings have this depressing property; they can become desensitized to even the most pleasurable things. For me, being stimulated in radically different ways is great. It’s wonderful to be able to do such different things on a daily basis."

"For me, as a young writer-slash-researcher, there was always a perception that I would have to choose between doing one or the other, that the research community wouldn’t take me seriously if I was writing, and that as a writer there would be no time to have an intense day job.

But, you know, it’s not true. There’s time to do lots of things in life. And doing research certainly doesn’t mean that you can’t also be an artist or a musician or a writer or whatever else interests you. I hope that young people who are studying science won’t get the sense that that’s all that they can do, and that their minds will be closed to the arts."

On his website for his books, I got a kick out of reading at the bottom of the page: "Click here for Karl Iagnemma’s robotics-related webpage."