My journey towards interdisciplinarity

Susan Lord (University of San Diego, USA)

I have been interested in interdisciplinarity since I was a kid but didn’t know it.  I loved reading which transported me to new places and math where I could solve challenging puzzles.  I did a dual major in electrical engineering (EE) and materials science at Cornell University.  I loved seeing different perspectives on electronic devices, appreciated the supportive culture of materials in contrast to the challenging culture of EE, and explored “fun” classes ranging from “Political Interpretations of Contemporary Afro-American Culture” to “Great Books.”  

For graduate school, I chose EE at Stanford University working on optoelectronic materials.  The mix of disciplines from EE, physics, applied physics, and materials science was a strength of the group.  However, the culture of 24 men and me pushed me to take classes in feminist studies.  I was amazed at the topics studied and gained a deeper understanding of the variation across disciplines.  

When I started teaching EE at Bucknell University, I realized that I needed to add knowledge of education to my disciplinary mix if I wanted to help my students learn.  Fortunately, I found the engineering education research community through the Frontiers in Education (FIE) conference and still value this community which has expanded to include SEFI.

My research in engineering education is interdisciplinary.  Working across disciplines of engineering, sociology, and education is not easy but I believe leads to powerful and useful results.  I have worked with such teams investigating student veterans in engineering, student trajectories with MIDFIELD, and Latinas in engineering.

At the University of San Diego (USD), my teaching has moved towards interdisciplinarity.  For example, our user centered design course for all engineering students explores issues of privilege in the context of design.  This has allowed me to bring in concepts I learned in my feminist studies classes such as intersectionality and social constructions.  

I now strive to be interdisciplinary rather than multidisciplinary.  I see multidisciplinary as exploring different disciplines and interdisciplinary as bringing knowledge from different disciplines together.  Our USD engineering programs have always offered a BS/BA degree.  This has been multidisciplinary as students take a broad range of classes from religion to public speaking to ethics to statics but may not see any connections.  Our Integrated Engineering program strives to be interdisciplinary where we engage with social, economic, and environmental considerations within our technical classes.  For example, we discuss conflict minerals in a Circuits class and the needs of the disability community in choosing materials for straws in a Materials Science class.  In a collaborative NSF-sponsored project with Cindy Finelli and Erin Cech, we are expanding these sociotechnical modules for the Introduction to Circuits class.  This has the potential to impact students’ lives as they see a meaningful application of their technical knowledge and to begin to change the definition of what “counts” in the field of electrical engineering. 

I think interdisciplinary work is challenging, collaborative, and critically important.  I encourage others to think of it broadly, recognizing how hard it is to anticipate what knowledge might prove useful.  When I took feminist studies classes in graduate school, I never imagined I would use knowledge from them in my engineering world.  Today’s issues require interdisciplinary thinking and partnerships.  It is important to expand beyond your comfort zone and see how much variation there is in different disciplinary approaches.  Read books from authors with different backgrounds than you. Partner with colleagues in different areas.  Redefine the boundaries of your discipline.  I believe that interdisciplinarity is the way of the future and essential for addressing the critical issues our world faces today.