International Geobiology Summer Course: Providing Focus for an Emerging Field

该奖项是针对早期研究生的“地球生物学”暑期课程。本课程将在这一新兴领域的发展中发挥关键作用，培养新一代跨学科丰富的研究生，并为学术部门和学者社区内这一领域的发展提供重点。这种类型的暑期课程将创建一个科学家社区，通过友谊和学术合作的网络将跨学科的科学家联系在一起。这个网络将是这个新领域成功的关键。地球生物学是一门年轻的新兴科学，使用广泛的暑期课程作为该领域的重点是一个真正的优势。在Agouron研究所提供的种子基金的帮助下，pi们在过去三年里组织并开办了为期六周的暑期课程。他们开发这门课程的具体目标是建立一个杰出的、跨学科的、相互联系的地理生物学家领域，并为他们提供一个共同的词汇，以探索新的研究途径。杰出的地质学家、生物地球化学家、微生物学家、生物化学家和分子生物学家被招募来教授这门课程。最先进的分子、微生物学和地球化学实验室建立在南加州大学箭牌研究所位于卡塔利娜岛的海洋实验室。然而，这门课程最特别的方面是它的智力结构，它鼓励这些科学家在成为朋友的同时一起学习。这种大学关系提供了一种粘合剂，帮助该领域发展壮大。当这些学生不得不在通往终身教职的道路上做出关于研究的艰难决定时，这门课程的真正价值可能才会显现出来。跨学科研究的一个长期困难是学科部门对其的看法，特别是在终身教职的评估中。学科教员在评估本学科以外的研究方面存在困难，也难以确定写信的人选。通过创建地理生物学的“领域”，这种身份可以更快地出现，也可以产生一代导师，他们了解这些学生，了解这个领域，并且是这种科学研究方式的倡导者。这将为这些学生铺平道路，并在现代大学的学科围墙内更快地促进跨学科的出现。通过这种方式，该课程有助于促进学术界的全系统变革，并促进跨学科活动的发展模式，这些活动可以与许多其他学术追求相关。

The award is for a summer course in "Geobiology" directed toward the early graduate student. This course will play a key role in the development of this emerging field, train a new generation of graduate students in its interdisciplinary richness and provide a focus for the development of this area within academic departments and within the community of scholars. This type of summer course will create a community of scientists linked across disciplines by a network of friendships and scholarly collaborations. This network will be key to the success of this new field. Geobiology is a young, emerging science and there is a real advantage to using a broad summer course as a focus for this field. With seed moneys from the Agouron Institute, the PIs have organized and run a 6-week summer course for the last three years. They developed this course with the specific objective to build a field of exceptional, interdisciplinary and interconnected geobiologists and to provide them with a common vocabulary with which to explore new research avenues. Exceptional geologists, biogeochemists, microbiologists, biochemists and molecular biologists were recruited to teach blocks of this course. State-of-the-art molecular, microbiology and geochemistry labs were built at the USC Wrigley Institute's marine lab on Catalina Island. However, the most special aspect of the course is the intellectual construct that encourages these scientists to learn together while they become friends. This collegial bonding provides a glue that helps the field grow strong. The real value of the course probably emerges when these students have to make the hard decisions about research on the path to tenure. A perennial difficulty with interdisciplinary research is its perception in disciplinary departments, particularly during the evaluations for tenure. Disciplinary faculty have trouble evaluating the parts of the research outside of the discipline and difficulty identifying people to write letters. By creating the "field" of Geobiology, this identity can be made to emerge sooner and also produce a generation of mentors who know these students, know the field, and are advocates for this way of doing science. This should ease the paths for these students and more rapidly promote the emergence of the interdiscipline within the disciplinary walls of modern universities. In this way, the course helps promote system-wide change within academia and promotes a model for the development of interdisciplinary activities that can be relevant in many other academic pursuits.