What does interdisciplinary research mean?
Interdisciplinary research typically involves specialists from multiple backgrounds and fields offering expertise on a complex topic, like the causes and effects of global warming or why the function of a protein can change drastically when the structure is altered just slightly.
Why should people care?
Interdisciplinary research, since it involves people of many backgrounds, allows for multiple ideas for solutions.
My Experience.
I worked as an undergraduate assistant in a lab run by Dr. Emily Sarver from Mining and Minerals Engineering, Dr. Leigh Anne Krometis of Biological Systems Engineering, and Graduate Student Nicholas Cook of Biological Systems Engineering. The project focused on comparing the effects of run-off from mining sites to the untreated-sewage released into the watershed by residential areas. It was the summer after my third year at Virginia Tech, and my background was Biological Science. I would never have gotten this experience if it were not for the Scieneering Program which focuses on interdisciplinary research between scientists and engineers.
I clearly had no experience in their research fields, let alone the project, but it was amazing how they treated my opinion as if it mattered. As they put it, I was the biologist, so if there was a random question about the organisms being tested, they asked me to see if I had any idea. It was amazing. Taking classes only in the Biological Science Department had begun to bog me down with how I was no longer the top of my class like in high school nor was I getting as many opportunities to work in actual biology labs. It was demoralizing to say the least. But, working in their lab helped me realize that I had learned. I knew what I was talking about, and I quickly learned even more from them.
Interdisciplinary research is important for scientists and engineers in a professional sense for increasing our knowledge about the world, but it is even more important in academia for students to experience working with professionals and other students of drastically different backgrounds. Too many of my peers think they will not have to work with people outside their fields. Times are changing, and that means how students are taught to research needs to change too.
More on the Scieneering Program at Virginia Tech here