I hope to learn of different motivations for research and new ways that people answer research questions in their respective fields. Although my research is specifically in the field of cancer biology, I hope to find that thought-processes and styles of thinking have significant overlap across fields. My cohort this summer will be a window through which I can see similarities across fields that will be useful to know as my research transitions from the topic of endocrine cancer to neuroendocrinology over the course of my career. Although this is not a huge jump in topic, I think it may be still useful to see similarities across all fields of study, even those with seemingly very little overlap.

One significant difference between my project and those of some other Brackenridge fellows is the level of specificity in the topic. Conversations with another member of my cohort, Ethan Crosby, illuminated me to the wide spectrum of specificity on which different projects lie. Ethan’s aim this summer is quite broad, as he is attempting to design a weather app that is generally superior to the existing one, while my project is highly specific in that it focuses on a single mutated protein that we’ve found to be present in a just handful of thyroid cancer patients. I find Ethan’s project interesting because he is tackling a problem that has many angles of approach, and I’m curious to see what research direction he decides to go over the course of the summer.

A major benefit of working in an interdisciplinary environment is that it is much easier to see how your research fits into the big picture. Working in a lab or only around people whose work is closely tied to your own can lead to tunnel vision and a warped understanding of the use of your research. It is therefore important to step outside of your field from time to time.

One obstacle of working in an interdisciplinary community, at least with my field, is a high barrier of entry due to the enormous variety of biological terms. Though many concepts in medicine and biology are not inherently difficult to understand, a proper explanation of these concepts usually requires the use of terms that are not common knowledge. It often then falls on the biologist to think of analogies to things in everyday life so that the listener can have at least some idea of the concept. I’m sure this issue can be found across many fields.