Baruch associate biology professor David Gruber was at a National Geographic Explorers meeting showing video of deep sea coral reef research when a fellow Explorer wondered if he had heard of soft robotics and whether that tool could be used in Gruber’s work. “There’s no biologist who’s using squishy robot fingers to go underwater,” Gruber says. He changed that by trying out the technology during a weeklong expedition on reefs deep in the Red Sea using Baruch’s remotely operated submarine. With the soft robotics, one can “work delicately with deep coral reef organisms,” Gruber says. And who knew Baruch has a submarine?