A layman photographer or a Specialist?

I had an opportunity to talk with the Genius Expert who is specialized in the sophisticated State-of-the arts in Multimedia Technology.
Because my former occupation in the University have deep relation with his own researches, we talked deeper and deeper as long as 2 hours.
Suddenly we realized why are we talking about this kind of professional titles, then we basted into laughter, we should have talked about photographs instead.
After that I had some curiosity, he was on of a student exhibitor of the Still Photography there, how come.
I would be consented to the condition that he had been invited by Fuji Film Co. as an invited Professor for their research and developing division engineers.
Why did he there pretending as an infant photographic student?
Judging from his biography, he had lead his life as a state-of -the- art researcher specialized in Telegraph & Telecommunication and now he is doing in Virtual Reality,  Multimedia User Interface including 3D and Multi modal.
He is second to none in any images field.
I would like to inquire when I visit his Lab room about his attitude to be a layman photographic student.