Fellow:Richard Hoff

Richard “Rich” Hoff is a sophomore enrolled at Temple University’s College of Engineering as a Temple Merit Scholar, a member of the Honors Program, and a bioengineering major. He hopes to specialize in either biomaterials or tissue engineering. During the past year, he had joined his campus’ chapter of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars and the Biomedical Engineering Society. During the summer of 2015 he worked in a lab run by an associate professor from Temple University’s bioengineering department, and a paper containing his research on the cytotoxicity of synthesized inorganic microspheres done in collaboration with his peers from the lab is currently being prepared for submission.

From a young age, Rich always sensed that he was different. He never tried to accept or think about things in the conventional way, and has always been fascinated by how people think and the significance of details and ideas. He is driven by his desires to seek answers and solve problems and believes that everything has a simple explanation, but tends to overcomplicate his approach because he is passionate about understanding the significance first. The significance provides a perspective that presents the ultimate truth about the connections that exist between concepts. It allows him to completely immerse himself in his questions and gain the deeper insight that he desires. He believes that perspective provides people with the tools necessary to make an impact and consider all courses of action.

Rich also enjoys singing, theatre, art, music, reading, playing videogames, and tinkering with puzzles and mental exercises.

“It is not enough to teach a man a specialty. Through it he may become a kind of useful machine but not a harmoniously developed personality. It is essential that the student acquire an understanding of and a lively feeling for values. He must acquire a vivid sense of the beautiful and of the morally good. Otherwise he—with his specialized knowledge—more closely resembles a well-trained dog than a harmoniously developed person. He must learn to understand the motives of human beings, their illusions, and their sufferings in order to acquire a proper relationship to individual fellow-men and to the community. These precious things are conveyed to the younger generation through personal contact with those who teach, not—or at least not in the main—through textbooks. It is this that primarily constitutes and preserves culture. This is what I have in mind when I recommend the ‘humanities’ as important, not just dry specialized knowledge in the fields of history and philosophy.” -Albert Einstein