What I hope to learn from my fellows?

The Brackenridge fellowship not only helps students with an interdisciplinary interest to develop their passion but also allows us to communicate with other students with different passions. Within my cohort, there are many creative and inspiring research topics.

It is important for us to know that no matter how much we study in our field of interest, our knowledge only gains in this one field. By communicating with students who have different passions and interests than me, I can easily gain knowledge from other fields which I might never learn if I only focus on my own study.

Differences and similarities

I believe our similarity is that all of us have the passion to understand this complex world. And our difference is that we come from different places, with different backgrounds, and different interests. This is great because it is our similarity that brought us together but our difference makes us gain.

Hilary Liu seeks to understand the neuroprotective properties of zinc regulation; Devesh Malik seeks to study the genetic factors of pediatric patients; Chelsea Carver aims to answer the question that how do different forms of parental praise relate to the math abilities, language abilities, and cognitive skills of four-year-old children; Philippa Zang’s project The Geography of Freedom, will use map-making to breathe life into histories of freedom and freedom-seeking articulations of community agency; Corey Shultz focuses on Pittsburgh’s immigrants’ access to healthcare during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Vincent Peebles aims to instead point out variegations of English poetry in the 14th and 15th centuries, outside of the most common ways to think about the works and world of that timeframe; and Gabe Field is interested in studying constructed language within fiction, provides in examining the philosophical and political implications of language at a granular level.

These projects include disciplines from many fields, such as medicine, neuroscience, history, language, literature, economics, and philosophy. I am really interested in all of these projects. Some of the topics study things that I have never heard before and I would love to learn more from my fellow students in the future!

Benefits and obstacles

The benefit that we can get from working with people from other disciplines is not only their unique knowledge but also the different ways they process their thinkings and how they approach problems. They may be some difficulties because we are from different backgrounds and have different knowledge, but we can communicate. Through communication, I believe people from different disciplines can work together and produce an outstanding outcome.

Many obstacles humanity are facing in this century require people from different field to work together. For example, climate change, poverty, and global health. I sincerely believe that I and other students in the Brackenridge fellowship will make an impact on the world in the future through our interdisciplinary skills.