Engineers have made impressive strides in creating artificial intelligence systems, autonomous vehicles and robots, and smart electronics. But these systems still lag far behind what living organisms can accomplish. No vehicle can navigate its environment the way a rat can, or fly easily in a crowd like a swarm of bats. No device can learn, remember, or interpret information like a human brain—or even like the brain of a small mammal or insect.

Now, a growing movement at Boston University and beyond is bringing together the disciplines of biology, computer science, and engineering to dramatically advance the state of engineered systems and push the boundaries of what human designs can do. The goal: to learn from biology to make smarter machines.