Prof. Joe Goddard of the University of California San Diego is the 2012 recipient of the G.I. Taylor Medal of the Society of Engineering Science, awarded for outstanding research contributions in the mechanics of complex fluids and the thermodynamics and transport properties of physical and biological systems. This AMR audio interview features his personal reflections on an international career at the forefront of applied mechanics research, the science and scientists straddling disciplinary boundaries, and work on his “petit soufflerie”, a wind tunnel for probing boundary-layer hydrogen kinetics in atmospheric reentry problems.