Photo of Dr. Udeigwe
MANHATTAN.EDU / COURTESY
Emmanouel Sofillas Asst. Sports Editor
Manhattan University (MU) has appointed Dr. Lawrence Udeigwe as Director of Integrative Programs under the ARCH Innovation Exchange, a campus-wide initiative aimed at reshaping how students learn, collaborate and prepare for careers in an increasingly complex world.
ARCH, which stands for Analytics, Research, Creativity and Humanity, is a campus-wide approach to learning that combines the foundations from the university’s three schools — the Kakos School of Arts and Sciences, the O’Malley School of Business, and the School of Engineering. Launched in the fall of 2025, the initiative fosters problem-solving, leadership and innovation through a dynamic ecosystem of design-based learning, entrepreneurship and cross-sector partnerships
In his new role, Udeigwe will provide academic leadership and coordination for interdisciplinary degree programs and initiatives administered through ARCH, working closely with faculty, department chairs and deans to support the development, oversight and assessment of interdisciplinary majors, minors and other credentials.
Udeigwe said the role is a natural extension of how he has always approached his professional life — without boundaries between disciplines.
“I was trained as a mathematician, but then I work with neuroscientists, with biologists, with medical doctors,” Udeigwe said. “And I’m also a musician. When I’m on stage, they don’t even know that I’m a professor. They just see me as a musician. I don’t see a boundary when it comes to discipline.”
That philosophy, he said, is precisely what ARCH is trying to instill in students. Udeigwe described five core objectives the initiative is working toward: self-designed certifications such as minors, micro-credentials or concentrations; cross-disciplinary student projects that go beyond classroom assignments; university-wide artificial intelligence integration; real-world industry connections through speakers and partnerships around New York City; and the creation and strengthening of new interdisciplinary majors.
On the question of AI, Udeigwe was particularly emphatic. He said ARCH aims to move AI beyond being a novelty tool and integrate it into everything students do at the university.
“AI is here to stay,” Udeigwe said. “AI becomes a tool to help solve problems, to help guide us through problems, and to help prevent problems.”
Udeigwe also detailed two new interdisciplinary majors he has been deeply involved in building. The first is computational neuroscience, which draws on biology, psychology, mathematics, electrical engineering and computer science to allow students to model the dynamics of the nervous system. The second is data science, which applies computation, mathematics and statistics to address data-related challenges that are reshaping industry and society.
Describing the day-to-day reality of the director role, Udeigwe said it requires the mindset of an architect — constantly designing and building something still taking shape.
“Each day I wake up, I have to think of what’s the best way to move this initiative forward,” Udeigwe said. “Each weekend, I spend some Saturdays, maybe five hours just brainstorming, what do we do next week to make ARCH move forward?”
As a professor of mathematics at MU and a research affiliate in brain and cognitive sciences at MIT, Udeigwe’s work exemplifies the spirit of the ARCH Innovation Exchange. His interdisciplinary research spans differential equations, dynamical systems and computational neuroscience, with a focus on mathematical models of learning, perception and neural systems and their connections to machine learning and artificial intelligence. He is also an accomplished jazz musician whose creative practice explores the relationships among mathematics, perception and artistic expression.
For students on campus, the arrival of ARCH has already sparked curiosity. Lukas Koch, a freshman mechanical engineering major, said the program’s emphasis on breaking down barriers between fields is something he wishes had existed sooner.
“Engineering can feel really siloed sometimes,” Koch said. “The idea that I could work on a project with someone in psychology or business, and that it actually counts toward something, that’s the kind of education I was hoping for when I came here.”
Evan Saraiva, a freshman civil engineering student, said ARCH’s focus on AI integration stood out to him in particular.
“Every industry is going to be touched by AI,” Saraiva said. “The fact that MU is trying to make sure we’re not just aware of it, but actually using it across all our classes, feels like the right move.”
Udeigwe said his path to the directorship began in 2023, when he started advocating for a data science program and later pitched a computational neuroscience major to Provost Bridget Chuck, who encouraged both efforts. When Chuck introduced the broader ARCH concept, he said it immediately felt like a mission he had already been living.
“When the administration mentioned to me, ‘This is ARCH, this is what we’re trying to do,’ I said, ‘Wow, this is the life I’ve been living,’” Udeigwe said. “So I would like to work on it here.”