“Do I feel spread too thin?” he says. “Some days yes, but who doesn’t? You also have to think about balance. What is the personal investment and sacrifice that you need to make in this?”

Still, Lue says he has no plans to relinquish any of his positions.

“You have to realize that you don't do everything,” Lue says. “There’s an organizational framework for how these things work, where you have sort of a series of tiers of basically, an organizational structure that allows you to do your job.”

For Lue, having this structure in place for the various organizations he oversees means he is not limited by the particulars of any one class or discipline and can connect ideas and tools already in use with those made available by emerging technology.

“I create a primordial soup, rich complex, nascent ideas and, from that, hopefully I foster,” Lue says, his rhetorical tone characteristically aloft.

—Dev A. Patel contributed reporting to this story.

—Staff writer Meg P. Bernhard can be reached at meg.bernhard@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @Meg_Bernhard.