“My students are unsettled by the amount of freedom I give them”
Jérôme Baudry and part of his team at the summit of Mont Buet. © Marianna Fenzi
Jérôme Baudry, the winner of this year’s best teacher award in the EPFL digital humanities section, takes students on a journey between past and present – with a detour up Mont Buet. He believes that knowing something about the history of science and engineering is essential to understanding who we are as humans.
On a sunny August day at the top of Mont Buet (3,096 m), in the Haute-Savoie region of France, a group of scientists tests a type of barometer developed in the 1760s (by Jean-André Deluc) and improved two decades later (by Marc-Auguste Pictet). The group is accompanied by a number of draftsmen who manually document the hike up the mountain along with the region’s geography, geology, weather conditions, natural environment and local communities. While this may sound like a scene from the 18th century, it actually took place just two years ago, in 2021 – the scientists’ clothing, backpacks and hiking boots were resolutely modern.
“By physically reproducing the experiments that researchers conducted at the time, we can better understand the conditions they faced,” says Baudry, an EPFL tenure-track assistant professor and the person who organized the Mont Buet expedition.
A science and engineering historian, Baudry joined EPFL in 2019 as the head of the Laboratory for the History of Science and Technology (LHST) at EPFL’s College of Humanities (CDH). Today he teaches a Bachelor’s class on the history of science and engineering and a Master’s class on the computational methods employed in historical studies. “Studying history means creating a dialogue between the past, present and future,” he says. “This helps researchers put current events into perspective.” Unsurprisingly, “environmental issues are the ones people are the most concerned about today. And to really understand human nature, you can’t look only at developments in politics, economics and society – you also have to examine the role played by science and engineering. This type of holistic approach lets researchers see how their work fits into the bigger picture and paves the way to new forms of scientific discovery.”
An immediate contribution to scientific progress
Teaching a humanities-oriented discipline at an institute of technology like EPFL may sound like an uphill battle. But by opening the CDH in 2002, EPFL showed that it firmly believes in giving scientists and engineers the kind of cross-disciplinary education that will enable them to approach problems from a multi-faceted perspective. And according to Baudry, this cross-disciplinary mindset has been firmly anchored in EPFL’s culture in the 20 years since the CDH was created. “Of all the humanities classes offered at CDH, however, mine are probably tied the most directly to science,” says Baudry. “If I was teaching at a regular university, I’d probably have the opposite problem: some students might find my lectures too technical. That’s the challenge of teaching at the crossroads of science and humanities – but it’s also what makes my job stimulating!”
Baudry obtained a PhD from Harvard where his thesis was on the history of patents. He admits that when he first started out, he thought he’d become a “pure researcher.” And when he was given an opportunity to teach, he “didn’t really know what to expect.” But he quickly found his bearings. “I really enjoy teaching because it’s only through sharing and discussion that knowledge comes to life.” Most importantly, Baudry realized that as a professor, he could make a more immediate contribution to scientific progress than by conducting research alone. “After just a few weeks, my students walk out of my class with a complete toolkit,” he says. “But research can take years before it leads to concrete findings and makes an impact.”
A state of mind
So what exactly is in this complete toolkit? “Beyond the tools themselves, what I really seek to impart is a state of mind,” says Baudry. “I try to get students, regardless of their major, to view themselves as researchers in the broadest sense – and not as just technicians.” While most students are accustomed to solving well-defined problems under the guidance of their professors, Baudry “asks them to pick their own research topic and then decide which methods and analyses will most likely give them the answers they’re looking for.” And that’s perhaps the most valuable aspect of his classes – what gives them the “Baudry touch”: he teaches students to think freely about the scientific challenges they’d like to tackle. “This freedom in conducting research – which in itself is fantastic – is probably what my students find the most unsettling about my class.”