Richard Hennig of the University of Florida explains why he keeps coming back to IPAM at UCLA. Originally a workshop attendee, Richard became more involved as his research career progressed. First as a speaker, then as an organizer, Hennig values the organic cross-discipline conversations with new peers. Richard credits material science lectures at IPAM as directly influencing his lab research, “The second time I was here, Virginie Ehrlacher from Ecole des Ponts ParisTech gave a talk ‘The Earth Mover Problem by Gaspard Monge.’ It’s affecting modern transport theory and AI. She introduced that and it changed the way we do research. We’re citing that lecture in a paper.”