The word that comes up again and again is “resonate.” Whenever a discussion gets going about interdisciplinary research — whether in the social sciences or natural sciences — women and minorities often say the topic resonates with them. However, to date, there is no comprehensive research addressing the issue.
To begin more formal discussions and propel future research, Dr. Stephanie Pfirman, professor and department chair of the Environmental Sciences at Barnard College, and Dr. Diana Rhoten, program director of the office of cyberinfrastructure at the National Science Foundation, planned a two-day conference that took place at Barnard College Nov. 12 and 13.
Scientists, educators, historians, sociologists and policy makers discussed how women and minorities might be drawn to interdisciplinary research. The three main questions were:
“We have people coming together who hadn’t really talked with each other before,” said Pfirman. “They’re starting to see the connections of how it might play out — all the way from your own learning as a student through to your career trajectory and then how you’re evaluated as a scholar.”
“A lot of the discussion was about how do we attract, retain and satisfy women and minorities who choose to do scientific research in an academic context,” said Rhoten. “What kept surfacing is this is a major question in general and interdisciplinarity might be an avenue.”
For more than a decade, universities and U.S. funding agencies have promoted the expansion of interdisciplinary research. Running a parallel course has been the effort to increase the participation of women and minorities in science, math and engineering. There is little data evaluating a correlation between the two, but Pfirman and Rhoten both said that whenever the topic comes up, the response is decisive.
“When Diana and I go out and give talks about this subject, people just come up to us afterwards and say how grateful they are for us taking up this issue,” Pfirman said. “We feel there’s something there and we’re really excited about exploring it.”
