Third Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Workshop in Sustainable Development

Third Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Workshop in Sustainable Development
April 12th-13th, 2013: Columbia University in the City of New York, USA

The graduate students in sustainable development at Columbia University are convening the Third Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Workshop in Sustainable Development (IPWSD); scheduled for April 12th-13th, 2013, at Columbia University in New York City.

The IPWSD is a conference open to graduate students working on or interested in issues related to sustainable development.  It is intended to provide a forum to present and discuss research in an informal setting, as well as to meet and interact with similar graduate student researchers from other institutions.  In particular, we hope to facilitate a network among students pursuing in-depth research across a range of disciplines in the social and natural sciences, to generate a larger interdisciplinary discussion concerning sustainable development.  If your research pertains to the field of sustainable development and the linkages between natural and social systems, we encourage you to apply regardless of disciplinary background.

For details, please see the call for papers, or visit our conference website where a detailed list of topics, conference themes and other information is available. 

website: http://blogs.cuit.columbia.edu/sdds/schedule-events/ipwsd_2013/
contact: cu.sdds.ipwsd@gmail.com

Note that the submission deadline has been extended to February 15th.

Probably the most important class I took at MIT

"Solving complex problems" (aka "12.000" or "Mission") is an innovated class for MIT freshman that was just awarded a Science Prize for Inquiry-Based Instruction.  

The course is a component of the larger Terrascope program (of which I am a proud member of the first cohort) designed to teach leadership and teamwork skills to students as they work on unbearably large and complex problems related to global environmental management (usually) or a coupling between human and environmental systems more broadly. The class is expertly designed and run, played a major role in my own personal development, and would be the one class that I would unconditionally recommend to any incoming MIT freshman.  Furthermore, if any faculty FE-reader is trying to build a program in "sustainable development" at the undergraduate level, I would strongly recommend that they try to develop a similar course.

The course is described by Kip Hodges (my first research supervisor, now at ASU) in a Science article this week (read it here for free):

Students are presented in the first class with a challenge that can be stated simply, but that is deceptively complex and has no straightforward answer. Over the course of the semester, it is their job collectively to “imagineer” a proposed solution, to articulate their solution, and to explain how they arrived at it.

(To be clear about how the class works, on the first day of my first semester at MIT, Kip walked into the room and put up on the board 

"Develop a way to characterize and monitor the well-being of one of the last true frontiers on Earth – the Amazon Basin rainforest – and devise a set of practical strategies to ensure its preservation."

and said "go". I'm not kidding.)

The instructor’s role in this class is primarily to create an environment conducive to self-directed learning. There are no lectures, although the students are exposed in a casual way to a series of case studies that are germane to their problem.... 

In the early years of offering this subject, we passed on to the students a list of people who had been recruited by the instructional staff and had volunteered to participate in such discussions. However, we soon found that such recruiting efforts were unnecessary; many at all levels of the academic community are open to such informal interactions when they are precipitated by students asking questions that begin with a phrase like: “What is your take on ….” These casual conversations are especially valuable because they impart an appreciation for practical integration of acquired knowledge

The course is currently run by Sam Bowring and Ari Epstein and it's material is up on MIT's Open CourseWare.  This year's cohort recently gave their final presentation (watch it here). My cohort's website is still up here (search long enough, and you can even find my freshman photo).

h/t Kip

Why we aren't so great at "climate management"

I ran into this today:

This Global Map of Science is based on research-front data for the six-year period ending in December 2009. The map shows the major subject areas within fields linked together in a network based on the same principles as our research-front maps showing highly cited papers. To create a map of science, we start with all research fronts in Essential Science IndicatorsSM from Thomson Reuters, and compute the links between fronts based on how often they are co-cited—that is, the frequency that current papers jointly cite two given fronts. Successive applications of a clustering process then groups fronts into larger aggregates. Each circle on the map represents a cluster or aggregate of research fronts on a broad topic within that field. Annotations have been added to this map which represent the main research themes. These appear as labels attached to specific regions on the maps. Additional information about Research Fronts.

Us interdisciplinary folks have something to learn from the hepatitisologists...

The impact of piracy on general circulation models

Sometimes the interdisciplinary research grant proposals write themselves. From last week's EOS:

Pirate Attacks Affect Indian Ocean Climate Research

Pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia nearly doubled from 111 in 2008 to 217 in 2009 [International Maritime Bureau, 2009, 2010]. Consequently, merchant vessel traffic in the area around Somalia significantly decreased. Many of these merchant vessels carry instruments that record wind and other weather conditions near the ocean surface, and alterations in ship tracks have resulted in a hole sized at about 2.5 million square kilometers in the marine weather–observing network off the coast of Somalia.

The data void exists in the formation region of the Somali low-level jet, a wind pattern that is one of the main drivers of the Indian summer monsoon. Further, a stable, multidecadal record has been interrupted, and consequently, long-term analyses of the jet derived from surface wind data are now showing artificial anomalies that will affect efforts by scientists to identify interannual to decadal variations in the climate of the northwestern Indian Ocean.

Link to abstract (full article is behind paywall). For more Fight Entropy posts on piracy click here. Note that this relationship has serious endogeneity issues.

Ideology in science

"In science, ideology tends to corrupt; absolute ideology [corrupts] absolutely"

-Robert Nisbet

That's from Mukherjee's Emperor of All Maladies, a remarkably in depth and fascinating book on the history of cancer and our attempts to treat it. That quote starts out the section detailing the push towards more empirically grounded treatments and away from surgeon preference and beliefs. Like much of the rest of the book, it manages to be frustrating, compelling, inspirational, and heart breaking all at once.

I'm finishing it up now and recommend it highly, even if your interest in oncology (or the life sciences, for that matter) is only passing. Mukherjee's subtitle is "A Biography of Cancer," but it is as much a biography of oncology itself, and all the foibles, hyped enthusiasm, and ideologically-driven resistance to change come across as uncomfortably familiar to someone working across fields.

On a side note: is it just me or does scientific writing by medical doctors sound and feel fundamentally different from all other scientific writing? It might be the reliance on narrative and case study, or it might simply be the tone; regardless, it always feels very "doctor-y" to me...

Nature Climate Change Publishes first articles

Nature Climate Change is a new, high-profile and interdisciplinary journal focused on climate change research.  Its first research articles were released last week, abstracts below.

Nonlinear heat effects on African maize as evidenced by historical yield trials

David B. Lobell, Marianne Bänziger, Cosmos Magorokosho & Bindiganavile Vivek

New approaches are needed to accelerate understanding of climate impacts on crop yields, particularly in tropical regions. Past studies have relied mainly on crop-simulation models or statistical analyses based on reported harvest data3, 4, each with considerable uncertainties and limited applicability to tropical systems. However, a wealth of historical crop-trial data exists in the tropics that has been previously untapped for climate research. Using a data set of more than 20,000 historical maize trials in Africa, combined with daily weather data, we show a nonlinear relationship between warming and yields. Each degree day spent above 30 °C reduced the final yield by 1% under optimal rain-fed conditions, and by 1.7% under drought conditions. These results are consistent with studies of temperate maize germplasm in other regions, and indicate the key role of moisture in maize’s ability to cope with heat. Roughly 65% of present maize-growing areas in Africa would experience yield losses for 1 °C of warming under optimal rain-fed management, with 100% of areas harmed by warming under drought conditions. The results indicate that data generated by international networks of crop experimenters represent a potential boon to research aimed at quantifying climate impacts and prioritizing adaptation responses, especially in regions such as Africa that are typically thought to be data-poor.

Perceptions of climate change and willingness to save energy related to flood experience

A. Spence, W. Poortinga, C. Butler & N. F. Pidgeon

One of the reasons that people may not take action to mitigate climate change is that they lack first-hand experience of its potential consequences. From this perspective, individuals who have direct experience of phenomena that may be linked to climate change would be more likely to be concerned by the issue and thus more inclined to undertake sustainable behaviours. So far, the evidence available to test this hypothesis is limited, and in part contradictory. Here we use national survey data collected from 1,822 individuals across the UK in 2010, to examine the links between direct flooding experience, perceptions of climate change and preparedness to reduce energy use. We show that those who report experience of flooding express more concern over climate change, see it as less uncertain and feel more confident that their actions will have an effect on climate change. Importantly, these perceptual differences also translate into a greater willingness to save energy to mitigate climate change. Highlighting links between local weather events and climate change is therefore likely to be a useful strategy for increasing concern and action.

Challenges for interdisciplinary journals

The American Meteorological Society has a new (1 yr old) journal Weather Climate and Society that is trying to integrate research across several disciplines. For people like myself, the birth of journals like this is comforting because it suggests there is a growing community of researchers interested in applying hard physical science to address social issues.  This is a good thing.  But like everyone trying to do this, they are running into real challenges.  Here are portions of an editorial that resonated with some of my own experiences.  

The Costs and Losses of Integrating Social Sciences and Meteorology

Jeffrey K. Lazo

....[A] colleague stopped by to ask my advice on a manuscript concept he was considering submitting to Weather, Climate, and Society. He is an outstanding research meteorologist who has been working with a team on models to improve flood warning systems in developing countries. He was interested in demonstrating the economic benefits of the improved warning system and wanted to apply a cost–loss model. Based on his reading of a number of articles in meteorological journals, the cost–loss model was the method of choice for demonstrating economic value.

My initial reaction was largely visceral, because I have a dislike for the cost–loss model. The cost–loss model has been used extensively in the meteorology literature as “the economic model,” but it does not really show up in the economics literature (I should note that my Ph.D. is in economics and, in six years of graduate school, I never once heard of the cost–loss model). A simple search for “cost–loss model” in AMS publications yields 161 hits. A similar search of the economic literature yielded none....

My concern is that the cost–loss model as used in most articles in the meteorology literature does not even begin to capture the full value of economics and build upon the extensive literature in economics on the value of information and decision making under uncertainty. It is simply too simple....

That said, the first issue of Weather, Climate, and Society contained an article based on a theoretical extension of the cost–loss model (Millner 2009; in fact, I recommend reading Millner for an explanation of the cost–loss model). In that article, Millner showed that incorporating a specific behavioral feature in the cost–loss model resulted in net benefit estimates potentially significantly lower than those derived from the basic model. His article demonstrated that behavioral aspects limit the effectiveness of the cost–loss model. I feel this should be read as a demonstration that the meteorological community needs to move beyond the cost–loss model. Building in part on the limitations of the cost–loss model that Millner’s work suggests, I encourage the meteorological community to move beyond the use of that model as the basis for defining economic value....

Weather, Climate, and Society aims to publish “scientific research and analysis on the interactions of weather and climate with society.” This editor’s opinion is that this will largely involve the integration of the social sciences applied to topics of hydrometeorological concern (including weather, water, and climate broadly defined). In light of the prior discussion on cost–loss models, this means we need to better integrate valid economics as economic theory, methods, and practice frame economics with analysis of hydrometeorological issues. More broadly, we need to use appropriate theories and methods from all of the social sciences and not necessarily “accepted” versions of social sciences from the physical sciences perspective.

All of the social sciences have extensive bodies of knowledge they can bring to the study of hydrometeorological issues. Some have a longer history of examining issues related to weather, water, and climate; for instance, sociologists have long studied evacuation decision making during hurricanes. However, for the most part the research and literature is rather thin at the intersection of social and physical sciences relevant to audiences of Weather, Climate, and Society.

Given this landscape, there are definite challenges for the authors, reviewers, and editors for this journal. First, is that most of us (authors, reviewers, and editors) are fairly new to this effort at developing a highly disciplinary but very broadly focused journal combining atmospheric and social sciences. There is a learning curve at this early stage of the journal, because we are all developing and setting standards and expectations. There have been and will continue to be some frustrations as these are clarified. However, as these are clarified and we move forward,Weather, Climate, and Society will be the premier journal for interdisciplinary work “at the interface of weather and/or climate and society.”

There are also difficulties in writing, reviewing, and editing manuscripts for such a highly interdisciplinary journal. For instance, authors, reviewers, and editors for economics journals are almost always economists. I suspect authors, reviewers, and editors for meteorology journals are almost always meteorologists, or at least in general from the “hard” sciences. In addition to meteorologists, authors, reviewers, and editors for Weather, Climate, and Society are from the “harder sciences” such as economists, sociologists, geographers, anthropologists, etc. One challenge for authors will be to maintain high standards for their research while also being able to respond to very diverse (and sometimes divergent) critiques from reviewers with expertise from different disciplines.

For the time being at least, this may make Weather, Climate, and Society the most difficult journal across all American Meteorological Society (AMS) publications to publish in and to be an editor for. However, it may well also make Weather, Climate, and Society the most valuable and dynamic journal in terms of moving the various disciplines forward in new, challenging, and interesting areas of societally relevant research, methods, and applications.

(I hope I cut out enough of it that I'm not infringing on copyrights). 

The structure of human knowledge

Following up on Jesse's post:

After dinner today I told Brenda that I wanted a network map of all papers ever written so we could see where the biggest gaps in human knowledge were. In moments she had us browsing the site well-formed.eigenfactor.org looking at a coarser approximation of my dream (see picture).

I highly recommend any academic or casual intellectual browse the highly interactive site, it is simply too interesting, beautiful and [maybe] important to ignore.

Perhaps the two most striking observations one can make from simple visual inspection are that (1) biologists write a lot of papers and (2) social sciences/mathematics/computer science are extremely insular (observe the big "hole" in the network picture).

I'll let the data speak for itself (please please look at the site); but the only thing I'll say is that if anyone wanted to create a new field, bridging the social and physical sciences looks like a conspicuously good place to start.

Interdisciplinarity isn't easy

I'm currently wrapping up edits on a paper on interdisciplinarity and research success and came across a pretty cool paper for my lit review with a couple of choice quotes:

"[T]he young scientist, who grows up in the midst of a competition between university departments and amidst competition within his department, who inherits the individualistic research tradition and graduates without having had an opportunity to develop skills in cooperative thinking and collaborative study, is poorly prepared to participate in the activities of a committee or a research team.

"Over and above this pressure from the outside, there are important scientific grounds why interdisciplinary (and interdepartmental) research should become a greater concern of the universities. The assertion that institutes of an interdisciplinary character will be associated more often with industrial enterprises than with universities may be correct in the statistical sense, but it should not imply that cooperative research is an industrial prerogative.

"For the research worker who has grown up in the traditional departmentalized university and who is anxious to take part in interdisciplinary work, the first step is to get a bird's-eye view of the neighboring fields and to obtain familiarity with the problems which are currently the foci of interest. However, text-book acquaintance is not enough; some contact with actual work methods is essential. "

I think these are all reasonably fair points. The problem is that this article is from the December 8th, 1944 issue of Science. Reading through it and noting how little change there's been in the language around "interdisciplinary research" is fairly shocking, and makes me appreciate not only how difficult working outside of one discipline is, but also the extent to which the road towards doing quality work combining the social and natural sciences (which is probably the best way to describe the specific flavor of interdisciplinarity that Sol and I are in) has been a long and arduous one.

Not that there hasn't been any progress, mind you. The flip side of interdisciplinary work is field creation. Climatology, neuropsychology, behavioral economics, and an untold number of additional academic disciplines were all, at one point, "inter-discipline." It's just nice to be reminded of the fact that establishing those fields isn't easy.