Yet many researchers agree that their coherent interaction is critical to addressing scientific and technological challenges facing society in the 21st century. Having recognized the value of interdisciplinary studies, many among the current generation of scientists and engineers in academia are re-educating themselves and giving graduate students a broader exposure to their own and other disciplines.
Such a trend is evident at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the field of aquatic chemical signaling. With a five-year, $2.7 million
Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) grant from the National Science Foundation in 2001, the institute established an aquatic chemical signaling research center and interdisciplinary graduate training program. The program is open to students in Georgia Tech's schools of Biology, Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Conducted in collaboration with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, research and graduate education focus on chemical communication among organisms in both marine and freshwater systems. Their chemical signals affect critical processes such as feeding, competition, mate recognition and habitat choice. These signals also produce indirect effects on population structure, community organization and ecosystem function.
Faculty members model the kind of interdisciplinary interaction they want to teach graduate students, says School of Biology Professor Mark Hay, who leads the IGERT program.
"We are holding hands across multiple boundaries," Hay says. "So we have a great potential to address new questions, or to solve old, but previously intractable, questions in new ways."
Students in the IGERT program start their training with a series of integrated core courses that address the biological, chemical and physical interactions affecting aquatic signaling.
image courtesy of John Parker
|
|
Georgia Tech graduate students Deron Burkepile, Brock Woodson and John Parker conducted research at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography in the summer of 2002.
(300-dpi JPEG version - 347k)
|
|
One of the first orders of business is teaching students enough about each other's disciplines to have a meaningful discussion of research problems, says Assistant Professor Don Webster of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He draws upon his experience collaborating with Assistant Professor Marc Weissburg of the School of Biology.
"When we started working together, it took us about a year to get a common vocabulary," Webster says. "We often get caught up in the lingo of our own disciplines."
IGERT students, on the other hand, will have an advantage in this regard when they begin research careers, Weissburg adds. "From the moment these students enter Georgia Tech, we begin to break down the barriers between the disciplines.... I spent three years getting the vocabulary, but these students already have it when they go out into the world."
Assistant Professor Frank Loeffler of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering also emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary communication. He, too, draws from his experience as a microbiologist working among environmental engineers.
"We are educating new students broadly, teaching them to communicate with people in other disciplines," Loeffler says. "If people can't communicate, they often don't like each other.... So it's important to understand where others are coming from."
After taking some core courses, graduate students form interdisciplinary teams to investigate research questions of their own design. Meanwhile, students attend seminars that address scientific ethics, special issues faced by underrepresented groups and women in science, scientific education and outreach to the public, and the practical aspects of professional development in science and engineering.
In a seminar planned for next year, Assistant Professor Julia Kubanek of the School of Biology will prepare students to educate the public. The class will hear from experts in public policy, politics and journalism. "It's a challenge to make science accurate and relevant to the public and to train young scientists to be people persons," Kubanek says.
Meanwhile, Loeffler shares with students the foundation for his professional success in working with environmental engineers -- a broad undergraduate and graduate education. Educated in Germany, Loeffler is a product of the interdisciplinary training trend that began in Europe a decade ago and is now catching on elsewhere.
"Companies have often hired young graduates who have specialized in one field," Loeffler says. "So traditionally there was not a need for students trained in multiple disciplines.... But in general now, a broad education is recognized as important, and the ability to communicate with other disciplines is critical."
With industry espousing this philosophy, academia is finding itself in direct competition with companies for the most broadly trained graduates. So one of NSF's goals for IGERT is to attract more graduate students to careers in academia, Loeffler adds. To compete with industry, IGERT offers graduate student stipends a little higher than the average. And a companion goal is to have those young researchers pursue careers in the United States, rather than abroad. Thus, only U.S. students are eligible to receive IGERT funds.
Another opportunity for IGERT students is participation in internships at government labs, non-government organizations, biotech companies and other scientific institutions, such as Skidaway Institute of Oceanography in Savannah, Ga.
image courtesy of John Parker
|
|
IGERT program students form interdisciplinary teams to investigate research questions of their own design.
(300-dpi JPEG version - 347k)
|
|
In the summer of 2002, teams of graduate students worked at Skidaway on research projects in aquatic chemical signaling. In one study, Deron Burkepile, John Parker and Brock Woodson investigated "The Taste and Smell of Death: Why Does Meat Spoil?" The students wanted to see if marine microorganisms colonize and chemically defend fish carcasses from marine scavengers, much like their terrestrial counterparts do in making fruits and animal carcasses spoil and therefore distasteful and potentially harmful to larger consumers. Burkepile and colleagues found data to support their hypothesis. They are still working to identify the deterrent compound and its origin.
"Microbes fight back with the only means available to them -- chemical warfare," Parker explains. "By producing toxic or distasteful compounds, microbes are able to fend off scavengers from eating them and their resources. By analogy, if you try to take a bone away from a hungry dog, it will fight back with its teeth. Bacteria and fungi lack teeth and instead use chemicals to fight back."
In another student project at Skidaway, Yin Chang, Matt Ferner and Lee Smee III investigated "Conflicting Chemical Cues" in the prey/predator behavior of blue crabs in estuarine tidal creeks. Their field study revealed that blue crabs were attracted to the odor of dead fish, but sacrificed these foraging opportunities when they were also confronted with the odor released by freshly injured crabs upstream from them, Ferner explains. The crabs respond to chemical odors by fighting, fleeing or hiding, which may have far-reaching ecological consequences, such as changes in habitat use by crabs and their prey.
"Further investigation of crab responses to conflicting chemical cues is needed to clarify how avoidance behaviors may help to structure natural communities," the students wrote in a synopsis of their project.
Projects such as these get students to solve problems by interacting and thinking broadly about science, Kubanek says.
In both research and graduate training, she adds: "We are trying to build up from a mechanistic level to understand how the ecosystem functions – how species interact and how the environment itself shapes interactions. Things like energy flow, temperature and movement of water can affect reproduction. For example, some species cannot recognize mates in high-flow environments. If we know this sort of information, we can predict the success of various populations in various environments."
For more information, on Georgia Tech's IGERT program, visit www.biology.gatech.edu/igert.htm. Or, you may contact Mark Hay, School of Biology, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA 30332-0230. (Telephone: 404-894-8429) (E-mail:
mark.hay@biology.gatech.edu). Information on IGERT programs at other institutions is available at www.nsf.gov/home/crssprgm/igert/start.htm.
Back to the Top
Contents
Research Horizons
GT Research News
GTRI
Georgia Tech
Send questions and comments regarding these pages to
webadmin@edi.gatech.edu
Last updated: April 12, 2003
