Krishna Kumar has spent his life crossing borders, both physically and mentally. As a child, he never spent more than a few years in a single city.
Now, as an associate chemistry professor at Tufts and one of MIT's 100 Brightest Young Innovators, he explores new boundaries between chemistry and biology while conducting his research.
Growing up, Kumar and his family were constantly on the move. The seven years Kumar has spent teaching at Tufts mark his longest stationary period.
"Boston is now the place I've lived the longest in my life," he said. After he was born in Madras, India, Kumar's family began many years of traveling around the country.
"I spent probably roughly equivalent amounts in the North and South, probably six or seven different cities, two to three years in each," Kumar said. His father's job as a mechanical engineer took his family across the country.
"It was devastating at first, because you're a kid," Kumar said. "You think your life is coming to an end, [but] then you get very used to going different places."
Kumar still loves to travel: He has traveled extensively throughout most countries in Europe, several in Asia and across the United States.
"I haven't been to South America or sub-Saharan Africa," Kumar said. "Those are two places I would like to go."
Kumar settled for a while, spending three years in New Delhi while attending St. Stephen's College and majoring in chemistry.
Even there, he found himself crossing borders, participating in journalism, sports, theater and political activism.
"I played table tennis in college," Kumar said. He also played squash and volleyball and took part in national - and one international - tournaments.
While at St. Stephen's, Kumar also designed lighting for several plays. "I was interested in drama ... I was doing lights, even professionally," Kumar said, explaining that he did lighting for a professional theater company in Delhi.
Though he is still interested in theater and sports, perhaps the most important aspect of Kumar's extracurricular activities was his political activism.
"When I was in college, there was political upheaval in India," Kumar said. During his third and final year, a bill that was intended to introduce a quota system based solely on caste caused massive student-led protests across the country.
"We participated quite heavily in that, and that entire year most universities in Delhi were operating at minimal classes being held," Kumar said. "As an experience, it was quite powerful."
So powerful, in fact, that Kumar's strongest memory of college involves one such protest.
"There was a protest at what is called the ITO [Income Tax Office] Crossing in Delhi," Kumar said. "It's a massive road, and the students are protesting outside, and we were part of that."
"Suddenly, the police came from both sides and blocked off that road," Kumar said. After that, the protest turned violent: "Eventually, some student probably threw some stones, it's very unclear, but then the police had water cannons."
As the police charged the protesters with batons, the students ran into the two Income Tax Office buildings. "You can imagine, a big road that's been blocked off from both ends ... and we were hiding because now there is an exchange of stones and everything from both sides; it was a protest gone bad," Kumar said.
Though Kumar and his fellow students were protected by the relative safety of the building, not everyone was so lucky.
"We saw two people, and they were standing in the middle of the road while all this was going on - they weren't even ducking to avoid anything," Kumar said. "I just remember running back to the road and grabbing them and taking them [back to the ITO building]."
The danger faced by Kumar and the other protestors turned out to be worth the struggle: "In the end, the
government did retract the bill," said Kumar, explaining that the prime minister at the time resigned and the party in power changed, likely because of the continued student protests.
"If you don't protest something that you truly believe is completely wrong, nothing will change. I'm happy that it did," he said.
Between his activism and his involvement in theater and sports, Kumar still managed to make time for chemistry - admitting, however, "I didn't attend many other classes."
Though he came to college as a major in the subject, Kumar said that at that point, he did not intend to become a chemist. He found the subject interesting, but was actually considering becoming a journalist or studying international and economic affairs.
It wasn't until he earned his Ph.D. at Brown University that Kumar realized he truly wanted to devote his life to the interface of chemistry and biology.
But Kumar's passion drives him to remain interested in many different fields. "I love ideas," he said. "If there is a powerful idea, it doesn't matter which field of study it is in - whether it's a political idea, whether it's in science, or something else. I think once I'm captivated by the idea, I just go there."
This philosophy of life has also served Kumar in his research: "I started out as a different type of chemist," he said. "Even in chemistry there are boundaries, and I've sort of just kept moving on... my work at Tufts bears very little resemblance to what I did for my Ph.D. and even less resemblance to what I did as an undergraduate."
As a Ph.D. student at Brown while doing post-doctoral research at the Scripps Research Institute, Kumar was influenced by his mentors to not only devote his life to chemistry, but to become a professor as well.
According to Kumar, his Ph.D. advisor from Brown still influences him today: "He's probably the best teacher I've met. I still think so," Kumar said. "That has shaped at least my personal teaching style as well."
Kumar, however, not only considers his teachers to be mentors, but also his students. He finds inspiration in and learns daily from the graduate students who make up his lab, saying that they are "the best he has seen" at the top institutions in the world.
Though Kumar said that he doesn't want to "predict the future," he does see himself continuing with his research and career as a professor.
"Many wonders await us," he said. "I hope there's more fun ahead."
