ISHPSSB hosted its second off-year workshop at Indiana University this summer, “Future Directions in Biology Studies” (FDIBS), 26-30 July. Modeled on the successful 2004 workshop in San Francisco, FDIBS focused on cross-disciplinary graduate student training and research.
FDIBS was attended by 75 participants (41 students, 34 faculty) from Australia, Canada, England, Israel, Mexico, and the USA. Generous travel grants allowed us to recruit students from all over the world.
FDIBS was organized by a team of grad students, Jason Byron, Matt Dunn, and Lisa Onaga, with organizational assistance from Lisa Lloyd and Colin Allen. FDIBS was generously supported by a large grant from the Indiana University Office of the Vice President for Research. The National Science Foundation funded student travel awards, and the Indiana University Human Origins Institute donated their facility for the opening reception. Participating faculty chipped in to pay for the Happy Office Hours (Indiana State law is particularly harsh about alcohol purchases, we discovered).
FDIBS kicked off the workshop Wednesday evening with a reception at the beautiful Human Origins Institute, an independent anthropology research facility a few miles outside Bloomington. Plenary sessions were scheduled Thursday through Sunday. These were followed by Roundtable Discussions and Breakout Sessions in the afternoons and Happy Office Hours in the evenings Thursday to Saturday.
The Plenary sessions were organized around a central theme, with three or four speakers from different disciplines giving 25-minute talks each. The remaining time was devoted to open discussion. The speakers were given wide latitude to discuss their latest work, and the sessions generated significant cross-disciplinary discussion. The sessions focused on “Situating Knowledges” (Steve Downes, Staffan Mueller-Wille, Tom Gieryn); “Genetics and Society” (Gar Allen, Paul Griffiths, Mike Lynch); “Rethinking Interdisciplinarity” (Erika Milam, Lindley Darden, Fred Tauber); and “Evolution” (Lisa Lloyd, Roberta Millstein, Joe Cain, Jim Griesemer).
The Roundtables were practical mini-workshops on “Gender,” “Navigating the Interdisciplines,” and “Jobs & Publishing.” Speakers gave 10-minute presentations, which were followed by question and answer. Grad students reported the roundtables extremely useful and informative.
The most innovative aspect of FDIBS was the student-led breakout sessions. Three concurrent sessions were offered each day Thursday to Saturday, with 6-32 participants attending each one. The sessions featured two pre-circulated papers on overlapping topics from different disciplinary perspectives or methodologies. After a short presentation by the discussion leaders, the rest of the session was devoted to open discussion. This gave participants the opportunity to do some real hands-out interdisciplinary work. Student participants were invited to propose their own sessions during initial registration, and topics ranged from “Biology, Society, and the Public Sphere” to “Invasion Biology” to “New Approaches in Cancer Research.”
Following tradition from the San Francisco workshop, FDIBS featured “Happy Office Hours” every evening Thursday to Saturday. During breakfast each morning, faculty participants signed up to host an office hour at one of three bars. After the breakout sessions, we posted the signup, and roughly one third of the crowd went to each of the three bars. The group happy office hours were extremely successful. Students and faculty were able to chat in a relaxed, informal environment, and the group setting allowed participants to meet several different people each night.