Searching for the “true spirit” of interdisciplinary research

Annual Report 2024 – Our research foci

Studying complex topics such as youth development requires perspectives from experts with diverse backgrounds. Researchers Nora ­Raschle, ­Assistant Professor of ­Psychology of Childhood and Adolescence, and Michael ­Shanahan, Professor of Child Development, explain how they ­approach interdisciplinary collaborations at the Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development. 

Studying youth development requires input from experts in many fields, from neuroscience to psychology and education. How do researchers in such interdisciplinary projects ensure effective collaboration across multiple fields, where methodologies and conventions can differ markedly? Nora Raschle and Michael Shanahan delve into their collaborative projects at the Jacobs Center and the joys and challenges of working at the intersection of multiple disciplines. 

Nora Raschle is an assistant professor of developmental neuroscience whose group works on understanding how the human brain develops, grows, and learns, focusing on factors affecting development and how the brain changes throughout youth. One of Raschle’s highlights from the past year is the SNSF-funded SMILIES project, where the brains of parents and their children are studied using neuroimaging. “We study socioemotional brain development in entire families,” she says. “It’s a huge accomplishment by my team, and I am very proud of it.” Raschle’s group is also involved in numerous collaborative efforts that bring together different experts, from clinicians to neuroeconomists and other human brain researchers. “Everyone has their topic, but we also try to inform one another about the bigger picture,” she says with regard to another project of hers, a research priority program at the University of Zurich called “Adaptive Brain Circuits in Development and Learning.” The project aims to study how we learn, from the single cell level up to brains and entire organisms, using various techniques, including neuroimaging, behavioral studies, and microscopy. 

Michael Shanahan, a professor of sociology, leads a team that studies how social environments affect gene expression patterns that are determined by the regulation of the genome, with a special focus on status and health outcomes. “Status is related to so many aspects of health – it’s the ‘master variable’,” he explains. “It takes a very diverse group of people to study this because it takes many different types of expertise, different types of specialists. I’ve really tried to work with people who don’t overlap with my abilities at all.” Raschle cites Shanahan as a “role model” in her own career, precisely because of his commitment to surrounding himself with diverse areas of expertise, which she is also aiming to do in her group. 

Collaborative work can lead to exciting outcomes with unprecedented depth, but it is not without its challenges. One of them is understanding when it is time to begin reaching out to other disciplines and taking the risk to venture outside your comfort zone. “When you can appreciate the narrow-mindedness of your discipline, you’re encouraged to go elsewhere,” Shanahan notes. “You need to become an expert to see the limitations of your own field,” Raschle adds. Indeed, Shanahan’s work at the crossroads of sociology and health is driven by an appreciation of the narrow-mindedness of sociology. “Sociologists have a strong interest in status and health,” he says, “but they are less interested in developing models that extend from society to cell.”
The drive to venture beyond a single discipline’s usual range can bring researchers to exciting new shores. Raschle recalls the early days of her career when she first began to embrace interdisciplinarity: “Going to conferences outside my field made me feel like I don’t understand anything!” she laughs. “I can do this with more confidence now than I could in the early days, and it opens up a whole new range of possibilities,” she says. 

Michael Shanahan has similar memories of his early forays outside his field of sociology. “It was like speaking a foreign language!” he recalls. He reflects on the importance of clarifying your work to those outside the field. “I always really strived to make sure that people from different disciplines had some appreciation for what’s happening,” he explains. “To do that, you have to speak different languages simultaneously – and it’s really fun to develop that skill.” 

Communicating your work is one thing, but convincing others of its value, especially those outside your immediate field of expertise, is another. “Different disciplines have different ways of using the data to persuade people,” Shanahan explains, “and that has been an interesting source of exchange in my lab – everyone has different standards by which they’re persuaded.” Ensuring that the evidence created could persuade people from different fields is paramount in interdisciplinary projects. “I have to persuade my fellow sociologists,” Shanahan goes on, “but I also have to think about persuading people from other disciplines – and that makes life very interesting.”

Nora Raschle adds that understanding and accepting the limitations of one’s own field, and all the methodologies and paradigms that come with it, is crucial for effective communication and self-aware collaboration. “My discipline can be very messy and variable, whereas another discipline might be able to make a much clearer statement and control variables that I can’t. Being aware of both of those sides is important.”

For Raschle, in particular, collaborative efforts extend outside of academia, bringing exciting new opportunities for exchange. Raschle’s group is involved with the Growing Brains project, which focuses on science communication and outreach on the topic of neuroscience. “We aim to engage in dialogue and develop a relationship with the general public and with the kids and adolescents we work with – not talking at people but rather with people, and aiming to increase science literacy,” she explains. “Not participating in outreach and advocacy is almost not an option anymore, so how can we provide something meaningful beyond our labs? I see that it also makes my research team members more eager, and hopefully better researchers and people, to have these interactions and be reminded of what we’re doing and whom we’re doing it for,” she stresses. Efforts like Growing Brains work to communicate the importance of studying human brain development to the general public, increasing the visibility of the field and demonstrating how collaborations between disciplines are essential for its success.

Fundamentally, everything comes down to effective communication between participants and a willingness to be open and learn indefinitely, at all career stages. “I don’t like to feel like I’m competing to be right,” Raschle says. “Within interdisciplinary exchanges, I wish that we would listen to each other more, and treat these discussions as exchanges to be gained from, rather than a competition to be won,” she adds. “That is the true spirit of interdisciplinary research,” Shanahan concludes.

Author: Vilhelmiina Haavisto
Editor: Servan Grüninger