“Bound to fail.” “Impossible.” “Can’t be done.”
Nadya Bliss has been hearing these phrases since she was a 5-year-old trying out for ballet in the former Soviet Union. These same phrases are used to describe many of the current seemingly unsolvable “wicked” problems, ranging from information security to the spread of infectious disease.
As the director of Arizona State University’s Global Security Initiative and professor of practice at ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, Bliss is not deterred by personal discouragement, or the claim that complex problems are impossible to solve. Instead, she embraces complexity and integrates expertise from a broad range of fields and disciplines.
Here, she speaks on solving the unsolvable problem, and how that's not as much of a contradiction as it might appear.
Bliss’ talk is part of the ASU KEDtalks series. Short for Knowledge Enterprise Development talks, KEDtalks aim to spark ideas, indulge curiosity, and inspire action by highlighting ASU scientists, humanists, social scientists and artists who are driven to find solutions to the universe’s grandest challenges. Tune in monthly to research.asu.edu/kedtalks to discover why space is the next economic frontier, how the next educational revolution will come about, and more.
More Science and technology
Lucy's lasting legacy: Donald Johanson reflects on the discovery of a lifetime
Fifty years ago, in the dusty hills of Hadar, Ethiopia, a young paleoanthropologist, Donald Johanson, discovered what would become one of the most famous fossil skeletons of our lifetime — the 3.2…
ASU and Deca Technologies selected to lead $100M SHIELD USA project to strengthen U.S. semiconductor packaging capabilities
The National Institute of Standards and Technology — part of the U.S. Department of Commerce — announced today that it plans to award as much as $100 million to Arizona State University and Deca…
From food crops to cancer clinics: Lessons in extermination resistance
Just as crop-devouring insects evolve to resist pesticides, cancer cells can increase their lethality by developing resistance to treatment. In fact, most deaths from cancer are caused by the…