Enhancing Communication & Collaboration in Interdisciplinary Research

Enhancing Communication & Collaboration in Interdisciplinary Research, edited by  Michael O'Rourke, Stephen Crowley, Sanford D. Eigenbrode, and J. D. Wulfhorst, is a volume of previously unpublished, state-of-the-art chapters on interdisciplinary communication and collaboration written by leading figures and promising junior scholars in the world of interdisciplinary research, education, and administration. Designed to inform both teaching and research, this innovative book covers the spectrum of interdisciplinary activity, offering a timely emphasis on collaborative interdisciplinary work. The book’s four main parts focus on theoretical perspectives, case studies, communication tools, and institutional perspectives, while a final chapter ties together the various strands that emerge in the book and defines trend-lines and future research questions for those conducting work on interdisciplinary communication.

Michael O’Rourke is Professor of Philosophy and faculty in AgBioResearch at Michigan State University. His research interests include environmental philosophy, the nature of epistemic integration and communication in collaborative, cross-disciplinary research, and the nature of linguistic communication between intelligent agents. He is Director of the Toolbox Project, an NSF-sponsored research initiative that investigates philosophical approaches to facilitating interdisciplinary research. He was principal investigator on the NSF-funded project, "Improving Communication in Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration" (SES-0823058), which extended the development and application of the “Toolbox” method designed to improve communication and understanding among members of cross-disciplinary research teams. He has published extensively on the topics of communication, interdisciplinary theory and practice, and robotic agent design. He has been a co-principal investigator or collaborator on funded projects involving autonomous underwater vehicles, biodiversity conservation, sustainable agriculture, and resilience in environmental systems. He co-founded and served as co-director of the Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference, an interdisciplinary conference on philosophical themes, and as co-editor of the Topics in Contemporary Philosophy series published by MIT Press.

Stephen Crowley is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boise State University. He is a graduate of Indiana University (Bloomington) where he was part of a rich inter-disciplinary community (philosophers, computer scientists, psychologists, and biologists) working on issues in animal cognition. He was also a founding member of the Indiana University Philosophy Departments’ Empirical Epistemology Laboratory – a group focused on applying methods from the social sciences to issues within the theory of knowledge in particular as well as philosophy more generally. Since arriving at Boise State, Stephen, while continuing to work on providing a coherent intellectual framework for empirical philosophy, has focused his research on developing an understanding of the barriers to and mechanisms for conducting inter-disciplinary collaborative research. Some of this work involves agent based modeling but the major focus has been on empirically informed investigation with the Toolbox Project (http://www.cals.uidaho.edu/toolbox/) at the University of Idaho. As a side project Steve spends time wondering why things are so much easier in theory than in practice when it comes to interdisciplinary collaboration!

Sanford Eigenbrode is Professor and Chair of Entomology at the University of Idaho. He received a BS in biology, an MS in Natural Resources and a PhD in Entomology from Cornell University. Sanford conducts research on chemical ecology of insect-plant and multi-trophic interactions. He has expertise in host plant resistance, natural products chemistry, scanning electron microscopy, and integration of host plant resistance into insect pest management. Recently, he has focused on the chemical ecology, landscape ecology and management of insect-vectored viruses of wheat, potatoes and legumes. He is director of an AFRI RAMP project on legume virus risk mitigation. His landscape ecology research has included study of insect pests affecting coffee agroforestry systems in Costa Rica. He is co-PI on a renewed NSF-IGERT project on Resilience of Ecological and Social Systems in Changing Landscapes and coordinator of the Joint Doctoral Program between the University of Idaho and CATIE (Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center) in Turrialba, Costa Rica. He is project director for a $20M NIFA Coordinated Agricultural Project on Regional Approaches to Climate Change in Pacific Northwest Agriculture and a NIFA-funded Risk Avoidance and Mitigation program. As an outgrowth of these several broadly interdisciplinary, collaborative projects, Sanford is engaged in research and education focused on improving the process of collaborative science, which continues to thrive through his engagement with the ECIR volume and the project that has produced it.

J.D. Wulfhorst is Professor of Rural Sociology and Chair of the Board of Advisors for the Social Science Research Unit (SSRU) at the University of Idaho. He received a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies from Appalachian State University, an MS in Sociology from the University of Kentucky, and a PhD in Rural Sociology from Utah State University. He has expertise in risk perceptions, constraints to adoption of technology in farm systems, conflict in rangeland management, and the negotiated order(s) of natural resource management. Recently, he has begun work in the area of climate science related to agricultural systems, societal adaptation, and community resilience. He has developed a niche as a social scientist collaborating with interdisciplinary teams addressing natural resource and agricultural challenges within the western United States. As a member of this editorial team, J.D. has developed an interest to pursue ongoing analyses of team-based research processes especially with respect to how social dynamics affect groups with turnover and institutional change.