A doctor who did not like math and science in high school or college? A doctor who thought medical school was boring because of “math and science amplified”? That was, indeed, the situation for Dr. Bon Ku ’91, the keynote speaker for Pingry’s 2026 Career Day. Dr. Ku is a practicing emergency physician and Program Manager at the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), where he works at the intersection of medicine, technology, artificial intelligence, and human-centered design to advance bold, high-impact healthcare innovation.
Notably, Dr. Ku’s presentation marked the first year that the Career Day keynote speech is sponsored by an endowed fund: The Maureen Kelly McLaughlin ’80 Career Day Keynote Presentation, named in Maureen’s memory. She passed away in September 2025 after a courageous nine-month battle with pancreatic cancer, and her family—husband Michael McLaughlin ’80 and children Dr. Connor McLaughlin ’12 and Lauren McLaughlin ’15—endowed this fund to ensure that Pingry can continue to attract distinguished and inspiring leaders to campus for Career Day. “These initiatives are important to Maureen, who mentored many younger employees,” Michael said as he spoke warmly about Maureen and her career.
As far as his career is concerned, Dr. Ku’s path was determined by his parents before he was born. Their dream was for him to become a doctor—hence his need to get through medical school, and he credits two activities with saving him from mental burnout: a hobby (in his case, surfing), and applying his creativity to the field of medicine.
Creativity has been a dominant theme of his work over the years. To name a few examples:
- starting the Health Design Lab in medical school, to apply health design principles to healthcare
- starting a “design thinking” curriculum for medical school, to teach doctors to think like designers
- applying the mind of an architect to healthcare, such as designing better physical spaces in hospitals (Dr. Ku is “obsessed” with architecture)
- redesigning a 1960s airstream trailer as a mobile health education unit in underserved areas of Philadelphia, to engage with patients in their neighborhoods; when COVID-19 hit, they repurposed the trailer as a vaccine distribution site.
Looking to the future, can the medical field use creativity to confront the challenge of rural hospitals closing (closures that are forcing patients to travel hundreds of miles to get care)? Dr. Ku wonders, “Can we shrink what happens in a hospital, to put that in a mobile unit and deliver that care directly to patients?” Can medical tests, such as CT scanning, be miniaturized?
Dr. Ku has even co-authored a book with Ellen Lupton, Health Design Thinking: Creating Products and Services for Better Health, in which the authors emphasize that creativity is a skill that can be learned. And that relates to creativity involved in communication. During his time in the medical field, Dr. Ku has heard countless stories from patients, leading him to declare that storytelling is fundamental to his work as a physician—and not just stories from patients, but doctors needing to tell stories about policies they want to implement, or research that needs funding.
In the midst of many jobs becoming increasingly automated, one thought delights him: “Our imagination cannot be automated. That is the power that we have as humans. Be able to tap into your imagination and creativity.”
Pingry thanks all of the alumni who returned to the Basking Ridge Campus to participate in Career Day industry panel breakout sessions.
Contact: Greg Waxberg ’96, Assistant Director of Communications, Writer/Editor