Hybrid Vigor Institute

Hybrid Vigor Institute Awarded National Science Foundation Grant To Study Interdisciplinary Research Networks and Methods

CONTACT: Denise Caruso or Diana Rhoten
The Hybrid Vigor Institute
+1 (415) 543-8113
mailto: caruso@hybridvigor.org
mailto: rhoten@hybridvigor.org

The Hybrid Vigor Institute has been awarded $253,490 by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to conduct a one-year pilot study of interdisciplinary research methods.

The Hybrid Vigor Institute, founded in 2000, is a non-profit research organization dedicated to demonstrating and encouraging the practice of new, inclusive methods of problem solving and inquiry.

The study, titled “A Multi-Method Analysis of the Social and Technical Conditions for Interdisciplinary Collaboration,” will investigate the social networks and anthropological conditions for interdisciplinary research at eight environmental research centers in the United States.

“We are delighted that the NSF is supporting this groundbreaking work,” said Diana Rhoten, Ph.D., managing director of the Hybrid Vigor Institute, former director of the Master’s program in international comparative education and an assistant professor in the School of Education at Stanford University. “Very little is known today about the mechanics of interdisciplinary research, yet the critical social, cultural and scientific questions that confront us today require an interdisciplinary approach. This project is a vital first step in learning how to conduct this type of research most effectively.”

Principal investigators for the study are Dr. Rhoten; Julian Orr, Ph.D., an organizational ethnographer formerly of Xerox PARC, and author of the book, “Talking About Machines: An Ethnography of a Modern Job”; and Denise Caruso, executive director of the Hybrid Vigor Institute.

Faculty advisors for the grant are: John Seely Brown, Ph.D., former director of Xerox PARC, and co-founder of the Institute for Research on Learning; Lisa Faithorn, Ph.D., manager of collaborative research, NASA Astrobiology Institute; Claire Fraser, Ph.D., president of The Institute for Genomic Research; Walter Powell, Ph.D., professor of education and affiliated professor of sociology and organizational behavior, Stanford University, and external professor, Santa Fe Institute; Denis Prager, Ph.D., president of Strategic Consulting Services and former director of health programs, the MacArthur Foundation; Steven Schneider, Ph.D., professor of biology and senior fellow of the Institute for International Studies, Stanford University; Margaret Somerville, Ph.D., professor of law and of medicine, McGill University, Montreal, founding director of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law, and co-editor of “Trandisciplinarity: reCreating Integrated Knowledge”; Richard Zare, Ph.D., professor of chemistry, Stanford University, former chair National Science Board, co-founder of Stanford’s Bio-X Program for Bioengineering, Biomedicine and Biosciences.

The NSF award was granted through the Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences.

For information on the NSF study, contact Diana Rhoten, Ph.D., at +1 415 543-8113, or via email at mailto:rhoten@hybridvigor.org

The goal of the Hybrid Vigor Institute is to develop and codify a series of best practices for interdisciplinary research. Its focus is on questions which reside in the realms of earth systems and the environment; health determinants; human “perception”, broadly defined; and interdisciplinary practice.

Serving on the board of directors of the Hybrid Vigor Institute are:

– Mark Anderson, president of Technology Alliance Partners and of Strategic News Service, the most accurate predictive newsletter covering the computing and communications industries, member of the Merrill Lynch TechBrains advisory board and a principal in the investment advisory firm Resonance Capital Management;

– Roger Brent, Ph.D, director and chair of the nonprofit Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, which he co-founded with Sydney Brenner after more than 20 years as a professor at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and advisor to various corporate and governmental bodies in the U.S. and abroad on functional genomics and computational biology;

– Katherine Fulton, a principal with Global Business Network, leading scenario, strategy and change projects in areas including publishing, financial services, education, health care, social services, telecommunications, broadcasting, consumer products, and philanthropy;

– Thomas Kalil, Special Assistant to the Chancellor for Science and Technology at UC Berkeley, charged with developing major new multi-disciplinary research and education initiatives, previously the Deputy Assistant to President Clinton for Technology and Economic Policy, and the Deputy Director of the White House National Economic Council;

– Richard Miller, who participated in some of the earliest technical design and development of computer based messaging and computer conferencing, now president of co-founded Breo Ventures LLC, a venture accelerator firm and consultancy which he co-founded; and

– Paul Rabinow, Ph.D., one of the most highly regarded cultural anthropologists in the field, professor (and former department chair) of anthropology at the UC Berkeley, where he has taught since 1978, and recipient of several fellowships, including a Guggenheim in 1980.

Serving on the Hybrid Vigor Advisory Council are:

– Nancy Adler, Ph.D., a professor of medical psychology in the departments of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of California San Francisco, and chair of the MacArthur Research Network on socioeconomic status and health;

– Andrew Blau, a consultant and strategist working with foundations to develop programs at the intersection of information technology and society;

– Stewart Brand, co-founder and managing director of Global Business Network, president of The Long Now Foundation, and member of the Board of Trustees of the Santa Fe Institute;

– Brian Greene, Ph.D., professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, author of the bestseller “The Elegant Universe”, and former director of the Theoretical Advanced Study Institute;

– Michael Lerner, Ph.D., is a former Yale professor, recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Fellowship, co-founder of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program and author of “Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complimentary Approaches to Cancer”;

– Bruce McEwen, Ph.D, is the Alfred E. Mirsky Professor at Rockefeller University and head of the Harold and Margaret Milliken Hatch Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology, heralded for making major scientific contributions to the field of neuroscience;

– Margaret Somerville, Ph.D., professor in both the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University, Montreal, founding director of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law, and co-editor of a book called “Trandisciplinarity: reCreating Integrated Knowledge”;

– Richard Zare, Ph.D., the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science at Stanford University, former chair National Science Board, council member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and a co-founder of Stanford’s Bio-X Program for Bioengineering, Biomedicine and Biosciences.

More information on the Institute can be found at http://hybridvigor.org, by contacting Denise Caruso, executive director, at +1 415 543-8113, or via email at mailto:caruso@hybridvigor.org.

Denise Caruso
Founder & Executive Director
The Hybrid Vigor Institute
+1 415.543.8113 vox/fax

Website: http://hybridvigor.org