“People Were Dreaming of Cinema Long Ago,” Says Pavle Levi, an Assistant Professor

FEMINIST STUDIES STUDIES FEMINIST AND WELL ALIVE A quarter-century program after the it was founded, speaks to a new generation. page 12

Much NEW RULES ABOUT ABOUT RULES NEW YOUR AGE ACTING A psychologist a new hopes multidisciplinary center on longevity will change attitudes about aging. page 6 see FILM STUDIES, page 4 action

GRANTS THAT THAT GRANTS IT REAL MAKE agencies Federal encouraging are multidisciplinary and research training. page 2

ISSUE 2 • WINTER 2006 • STANFORD UNIVERSITY • MULTIDISCIPLINARY NEWS UPDATED AT http://multi.stanford.edu The network of 13 The network an labs embraces array of researchers about just from every discipline. page 6 INDEPENDENT INDEPENDENT LABORATORIES

vision

lantern” presented in 1659 was perhaps cinema’s first ancestor. in 1659 was perhaps cinema’s lantern” presented later, later, in early modern Europe, optics became a source of entertainment; a “magic name to a film studies journal, appeared in ancient China and then in Greece. Program. Program. The camera obscura, a device for creating images that later would give its in Stanford’s Art and Art History Department and its new Film and Media Studies “People were dreaming of cinema long ago,” says Pavle Levi, an assistant professor

realized inter PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ANNA COBB inter action MULTIDICIPLINARY NEWS UPDATED AT http://multi.stanford.edu

The grants that make the research possible

ver since Frederick B. Terman, education, who now works at the Social Science principal investigator for a single molecule spec- dean of the School of Engineer- Research Council (http://hybridvigor.net/publica- troscopy group funded by the NIH within its ing, came up with his notion tions.pl?s=interdis). molecular libraries and imaging section. (http:// of steeples of excellence in the In similar fashion, the Roadmap initiative of the www/stanford.edu/group/sm_cell_imaging/) 1950s, research grants have fu- National Institutes of Health (NIH) outlines the Along with colleagues at Kent State University, eled Stanford by drawing money crucial importance of changing the nature of the the researchers at Stanford use lasers to observe and ensuring that the university grant-giving business by removing traditional bar- single molecules and the proteins within them. remains the home of some of the riers (http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/researchteams/ Moerner, biologist Lucy Shapiro and physicist world’s greatest scientists. index.asp). The NIH provides more Harley McAdams had all been working on a re- EGrants are still a prime source of en- money than any other single source for lated project funded by the Defense Advanced Re- ergy for many Stanford schools and de- university research nationwide. search Projects Agency. partments, and they are still on the rise. “Although research teams have in- “When that project ended,” Moerner said, “I Sponsored research in fiscal year 2005 cluded individuals from multiple disci- had heard about the new NIH Roadmap program accounted for 37 percent of the universi- plines,” the website states, “integrating asking for bold ideas. And since we had already ty’s operating revenue, or $973 million, different disciplines holds the promise demonstrated single-molecule imaging in bacteria, up 5 percent from the previous year. of opening up currently unimagined the goal was to do it better in cells with brighter What’s different about grants today scientific avenues of inquiry and, in the objects to make them more easily detectable.” and grants in Terman’s day, aside from process, may form new disciplines with The group needed new and better molecules. the raw numbers, is that today’s are Jeff Koseff which to tackle increasingly complex Enter Robert Twieg of Kent State University increasingly complicated and multifac- questions.” (http://dept.kent.edu/chemistry), who eted. As multidisciplinary research becomes the To that end, the NIH, like the NSF, just happened to be developing such rule in all scientific schools and departments, has over the past decade been fund- things. A sort of assembly line ensued, grants can get difficult to administer, on the one ing multiple-year large team projects, though each step of the way involved hand, but also can become more responsive to sometimes called centers, sometimes feedback from the rest. Twieg made scientific needs and inquiry, on the other. The called glue grants. Bringing together the molecules, Moerner measured them match is by no means perfect; researchers and an array of researchers, they often em- in model cells to see if they were good grant makers sometimes seem to be in a race to brace several institutions and include enough, and Shapiro and McAdams stay apace of each other’s agendas. But certainly training (and cross-training) as well as studied their behavior within bacteria. the matchmaking is increas- research funding. A “Before the 1990s, we weren’t able to ingly successful, and the re- new NIH transla- follow molecules except by measuring a Anne Hannigan sults can be seen especially Today, ‘NIH almost looks tional research grant large number of copies at once, which in Stanford’s schools of En- launched in October, for ex- only gives an average,” Moerner explained. “Now gineering and Medicine. like Bio-X!’ Bienenstock ample, explicitly encourages we can look closer and ask, Do all these molecules The NSF has embarked medical schools to provide a march to the same drummer?” upon a variety of initiatives to said, referring to the federal home for disciplinary-based Similarly cross-disciplinary research is going encourage multidisciplinary lab scientists. on at other big universities, of course, but Stan- research and training. Since agency’s new dedication to It was not always that ford has an edge, said Moerner, who with Judith the late 1980s, the agency has way. Stanford’s dean of re- Frydman was a co-recipient of one of the first Bio- funded Science and Technol- cross-disciplinary research. search and graduate policy, X Interdisciplinary Initiatives grants in 2000. ogy Centers, which bring to- Arthur Bienenstock, remem- “There are two aspects that make Stanford spe- gether scientists from a broad bered when his Synchro- cial,” he said. “We have a close physical connec- range of disciplines. In 1995, tron Radiation Laboratory tion between the basic sciences, engineering and the NSF set up an Office of received its very first NSF the medical community. They’re all within a few Multidisciplinary Activities, funding in 1972. But the hundred yards of each other. That is very rare, whose name is self-explanatory. A program spe- agency just wouldn’t commit. and the proximity really facilitates collaboration. cifically designed to help recent Ph.D.s acquire the “It was like they were interested in sex without The second aspect is that graduate students can cross-disciplinary training necessary for success- marriage,” Bienenstock said. “They kept insist- cross departmental boundaries, so I have students ful careers, the agency’s Integrative Graduate Ed- ing on three-year renewals. There was no mecha- in my lab from the physical sciences, chemistry, ucation and Research Traineeship (IGERT) since nism—we were driving the loop, we were pushing applied physics, biophysics, etc., and they can all 1998 requires that applicants propose a compre- for a long-term multidisciplinary view, and it was work together.” hensive interdisciplinary theme. clearly awkward for them.” As for the bumps, they are of various sorts. More recently, the NSF funded an 18-month But today, he laughed, “NIH almost looks like Managing complicated multidisciplinary grants report titled “A Multi-Method Analysis of the So- Bio-X!” issued by labyrinthine and bureaucratic agencies cial and Technical Conditions for Interdisciplin- Though there are bumps along the NIH road, is no easy task. It is sometimes a challenge just ary Collaboration.” The report’s principal inves- Stanford researchers are certainly going along for to make researchers aware that they can breach tigator was Diana Rhoten, a Stanford Ph.D. in the ride. Chemist W. E. Moerner, for example, is boundaries and that there is money available to 2 WINTER 2006 MULTIDICIPLINARY NEWS UPDATED AT http://multi.stanford.edu

L.A. CICERO

Chemist W.E. Moerner is principal investigator for a single molecule spectroscopy research group funded by the National Institutes for Health. do that. Chris Webb, a former genome scientist across the campus. manities and Sciences, engineering is in Engineer- who stepped over into the administrative side of Stanford’s other schools do not have someone ing, radiology is in Medicine and bioengineering research, is in charge of helping professors at the like Webb, and Anne Hannigan, associate vice straddles two schools), to which agency should School of Medicine put together multidisciplinary president for research administration, says she they apply? Who should be the principal investi- grants. He said he saw plenty of colleagues strug- wishes they did. Her department does what it gator, or PI? How should credit be apportioned? gling to do research on their own, unable to figure can, she said, but younger faculty members need How should different departments and schools out how to link up with others. more assistance. reconcile their accounting methods? (See related “They needed a nice cover story,” he said, re- “We don’t serve them well. That’s a goal of article, this page.) ferring to the challenge of showing one researcher mine, to serve them better with research prod- There is also the problem of money. More than that her narrative, as it were, could also be part ucts,” she said. one person interviewed for this story remarked of someone else’s story. Webb’s boss, Senior Asso- All in all, however, “Stanford is in good shape,” gloomily that federal research budgets will remain ciate Dean for Research Harry Greenberg, added she said. But financial administration of grants is flat for at least the short run. The Clinton admin- that “most researchers are already maxed out” a complicated business, with different incentives istration in 1998 embarked upon a five-year plan with their own work, “so Chris is a bridge.” and disincentives across the university, and “the to double the NIH’s budget, a task completed un- The School of Medicine pulls in more research funding structure makes it more difficult for peo- der the first George W. Bush administration, but money than any other unit at Stanford, and it ple to do business together.” since then “we’ve seen a steady state at best,” said generally takes care of its own grants. Like every- For example, in the case of a proposal coming Marcia Hahn, of the agency’s Office of Policy for thing else, though, the story varies as one wanders from more than one school (chemistry is in Hu- see FUNDING, page 11

Technology Policy recommended that the changing way in which science is son as the principal NIH contact, some- Who’s in charge? federal agencies adjust their policies to matching reality.” one who would get more paperwork The catalysts for research are many. help improve research. Encouraging col- “It’s a complex, vigorous discussion,” than glory, though they’re not mutually But without money most research laborative and interdisciplinary work was Hahn said of the debate among scientists exclusive. Chemist W. E. Moerner, for doesn’t happen. high on the committee’s list. In January over principal investigators. “Apportion- example, principal investigator on an The money, for the most part, is 2005 the administration announced it ment is a whole new kettle of fish.” ongoing four-year, $2.9 million grant, in Washington. Research and money would allow research projects to have With a single principal investigator, said he spent three weeks in spring engage in a mutually transformative more than one principal investigator only one person and that person’s institu- writing the annual progress report and a relationship: Researchers at Stanford, (http://rbm.nih.gov/PI_memo_050104. tion get maximum glory, even if (as is detailed budget for the next cycle. like researchers anywhere else, go pdf), and in July it requested comments frequently the case) there are subsidiary The transformation would be substan- where the money is (one scientist called from the scientific community on how to collaborators on the grant. For some tial for the NIH, which has a far more it a “command economy”), and, as a implement the new policy. scientists, that system makes the most hands-on approach to grant-giving than result, science and funding officials are The National Institutes of Health (NIH) sense, but for many others—especially its sister institution, the National Sci- working to make their grants more suit- at present acknowledges only one princi- those whose universities use PI status ence Foundation (NSF). Every step of the able and more stimulating for multidisci- pal investigator, or PI, per project. “One as a criterion for tenure—it is both process for the NIH is predicated upon plinary research. of the drivers behind wanting to recog- unfair and an unreliable way of assessing there being one principal investigator, “All the meetings in Washington these nize multiple PIs was the strong effort research. For them, credit and funding which means that databases, finances days are about multidisciplinary research, by NIH to recognize team science and must be reapportioned. and legal arrangements all will undergo but they haven’t figured it out,” said interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary sci- If indeed the NIH opts for the multiple an overhaul, Hahn said. Anne Hannigan, associate vice president ence,” said Marcia Hahn, director of the PI system, Hahn said, it probably will At the NSF, meanwhile, multiple princi- for research administration. “Everyone’s division of grants policy at the agency’s introduce what amounts to a prenuptial pal investigators are old hat. Essentially, struggling to reduce barriers.” Office of Policy for Extramural Research agreement in case “researchers fall out the agency lets the applicant institutions In March 2004, a subcommittee of Administration. “These are strong focus- of love.” It also will ask the participating (or departments) sort out the hierarchy the White House Office of Science and es of NIH, and the multiple PI is part of research institutions to appoint one per- see INVESTIGATOR, page11

WINTER 2006 3 inter action MULTIDICIPLINARY NEWS UPDATED AT http://multi.stanford.edu

have a place. There also will be a new undergrad- cized,” Benjamin said, as artistic creation ceased Film Studies uate film studies major (with various tracks) and being regarded as magical and as reception of im- continued from page 1 a minor, and doctoral students from Art and Art ages was widely and simultaneously shared. History will be able to concentrate on film (http:// So, literature, history and theory are paying at- In the 1870s, Eadweard Muybridge’s pho- art.stanford.edu/graduate.php?content=film). tention to visual objects in a way they never did tographs of Leland Stanford’s galloping horses “Stanford is a latecomer [to film studies], but before. Nonetheless, film still sits apart. As Bukat- marked the beginning of a new revolution in that can be an advantage,” said Levi, whose first man points out, it’s not just a visual art. There’s representation. His images’ direct progeny, film, book is on the relationship of aesthetics, ideology sound, too. would become the definitive cultural form of the and ethnicity in the cinema of the former Yugo- “I don’t like what happened,” Levi said, refer- 20th century. slavia. “We want to be cutting-edge. So we have a ring to film studies’ movement toward cultural Today people no longer dream dual task: respecting the past studies. “Why study film? You can study litera- of cinema. They study it. and charting new ground.” ture and film and furniture, for that matter, and When the first film stud- At present there are four see them all as cultural objects, but then it’s not ies programs began appearing, faculty members in the pro- about film anymore.” they generally were housed in gram: Director Kristine Sam- Bukatman’s work exemplifies how film studies literature departments. Movies, uelson, Bukatman, Levi and can be both rigorously about film and at the same after all, conveyed stories, and Jan Krawitz, a documentary time about many other things. Indeed, the list of the art and theory of criticizing filmmaker who will join Sam- his research interests might make other academics narratives on paper were, it was uelson in moving from Com- realize with a jolt that other people have more fun thought, easily transferable to munication to Art next fall. than they do. Bukatman lately has been studying narratives on a screen. They are conducting a search superheroes and comics, phenomena that are flam- In the 1970s, Marshall for a junior specialist in Asian boyant, urban, literally in-your-face. He’s also in- McLuhan’s ideas about the mas- cinema; Samuelson hopes terested in performance, be it musicals, comics or saging influence of the “mass that after that, they can hire pornography, and the links between technology, media” gave new prominence to a film production instructor human perception and bodily experience. the technology of film, and the and then a senior scholar to Science fiction, for him, is a place where all subject drifted into media and lead the program once she these things blend, where audiences are forced communication departments. steps down in three years. to constantly examine themselves, their perspec- That is where it has resided The field of film studies tive and their agency. In his brief and articulate at Stanford until now. The an- in a way is suffering from its introduction to the British Film Institute’s book nouncement last fall of the uni- own success. Many classes on the film Blade Runner, Bukatman remarked versity’s born-again Film and in humanities and social sci- that “through the language, iconography and nar- Media Studies Program, housed ences departments have at ration of science fiction, the shock of the new is in the Department of Art and one time or another featured aestheticised and examined.” The relationship Art History, signaled not only the ‘You can’t reproduce film films. Partly that may be between us and the performer, in other words, start of an exciting curriculum because it’s an easy bet stu- becomes a means for evaluating our world, its and degree program but the reso- like you can reproduce a dents will pay closer atten- complexity and development. The rules of engage- lution of a disciplinary journey. tion, but it also reflects the ment with on-screen utopias and dystopias do not Film is generally studied in quotation or a painting. It’s belief that everyone figures allow for passivity. two ways, said Associate Profes- they can “watch” films and In November it was Bukatman’s pleasure to in- sor Scott Bukatman, the direc- “something else,” and that understand what they’re see- troduce Linda Williams, an acclaimed film scholar tor of undergraduate studies for ing. What’s to study? at the University of California-Berkeley, who was the program: as an art in and of “something else” is more Such assumptions on the the Marta Sutton Weeks Distinguished Visitor at itself (as in “the art of Fellini”) part of nonexperts are of the Humanities Center (http://shc.stanford.edu/ or as the bearer of ideology. The fundamental than narrative,’ some concern to the new events/lindawilliams_0506.htm). Williams has name “Film and Media Stud- program’s leaders. written extensively on race, sexuality and pornog- ies” encompasses both the artis- Bukatman said. “There are lots of intersec- raphy; she manages to combine intellectual rigor tic and the cultural meanings of tions” with other fields, “but with both the appeal and the topicality that befits the medium, he said, acknowl- there also must be limits,” her subject matter. Bukatman’s opening remarks edging that film can be studied Samuelson said. “We have to and Williams’ subsequent lectures and seminars as an art form or, for example, embrace faculty who teach pointed to their field’s range. He spoke admiringly as a vehicle of ideas about gender, race or class. film, but it can get complicated.” The new program about the fact that her work constantly makes un- But it cannot be studied as an on-screen version therefore will include a rigorous core series taught expected connections—between musicals and por- of literature, Bukatman said. “Film is different. by film studies faculty. “We have to delicately but nography, for example, or between race and melo- You can’t reproduce film like you can reproduce clearly establish the parameters,” she said. drama—and her talk that evening, about the ins a quotation or a painting. It’s ‘something else,’ In Levi’s view, “People in other departments and outs of on-screen kissing, proved him right. and that something else is more fundamental than study film, and that’s fine. We want to encourage On the production end, and for something narrative.” And, he pointed out, “there are also that. But it must be mutual, and we must have au- completely different, take the work of Samuelson, non-narrative aspects of film.” tonomy. Inversely, I could teach a course in a liter- an independent film producer. Last June she pro- It’s not an easy problem figuring out the nature ature department, but the course pertains to them. duced a project called “Point 25,” named for the of the beast, though students, he said, understand That’s the dynamic that has to be maintained.” quarter-second time delay of a fast Internet con- clearly that the muse required to produce a poem The ubiquity of film in curricula and confer- nection between Stockholm and Stanford. Using is a different creature than that required to pro- ences is, then, good news and bad news. The a two-screen video installation she designed, two duce a film. emergence of “visual studies” and “cultural stud- musicians at each of those sites played in full sight “We’re not inventing a discipline,” said Levi, ies” tacitly or explicitly recognizes and salutes (and sound) of each other and of their respective Bukatman’s junior colleague. “Film studies is al- film’s key position in modernity, but at the same audiences. The event in the “cyber concert hall” ready a discipline, and it’s interdisciplinary. That’s time these new fields can overlook film’s specific- was followed by a cyber reception, which at this a key point. It’s not simply something mapped ity. They juxtapose the textual, the concrete and end was held at Wallenberg Hall (http://news- across other disciplines. It has an autonomy and the conceptual; they link aesthetic and material service.stanford.edu/news/2004/july7/globe- systems of study of its own. concerns, art and commerce, the viewer and the jam-77.html). Samuelson also collaborates with “I like that film studies at Stanford will be in viewed. The overwhelming importance of Michel Media X (http://mediax.stanford.edu/) and with art,” he said. “In many schools, art and art history Foucault’s writings in the past few decades has the Center for Computer Research in Music and are separate. Here they coexist, which is the most made it virtually impossible to disengage looking/ Acoustics (http://ccrma.stanford.edu/). productive symbiotic relationship. Film studies seeing from social power or to overlook the per- As Samuelson’s and others’ work makes evi- will have two components—film studies and film- formative nature of social acts. Walter Benjamin, dent, if there’s something not quite right about making; one academic, the other production. It’s a a major reference point in literary studies, wrote stuffing film into “visual studies,” there’s also a smaller version of the division between art and art in his famous 1936 essay, “The Work of Art in problem with the term “film studies” itself, which history. So it’s a great, creative laboratory.” the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” that film is that most moving images we see today aren’t In the new program, a terminal two-year Mas- was different from all other art forms because of film at all; they’re digital. “The movies” today are ter of Fine Arts degree will replace the existing its reproducible nature and its subsequent loss of not necessarily in a theater; rather, images are ev- master’s degree, which was essentially about aura. That meant that spectators saw and under- erywhere, and they “move” with us on electronic production. The M.F.A. will be more academic, stood film differently from the way they saw and devices in our pockets and purses. though practice will never be out of the picture. understood art forms displayed in the hallowed So, if centuries ago people dreamed of cinema, Aesthetics, technology and social analysis will all ground of museums. Audiences were “politi- today they dream of a multitude of portable,

4 WINTER 2006 MULTIDICIPLINARY NEWS UPDATED AT http://multi.stanford.edu

L.A. CICERO

adaptable, interactive screen images. interested in game development than in game par- Professor Kristine Samuelson, above, the director of the “We need to define what we study and what we ticipation, and the issues raised in his classes in- don’t,” Levi said. “We live in a completely image- clude matters such as: How does the structure of a new Film and Media Studies Program, last year produced saturated society, and film studies has to adapt game propel the narrative? Why have games been Point 25, a cyber-spectacle in Wallenberg Hall involving itself. That’s the good side of the shift. Film schol- treated as if they were linear, authored media? To ars are well equipped to address these expanded what degree are players consumers or producers? musicians in Sweden and Stanford, below. Opposite forms of moving images.” And what sort of community do they create? In exactly that vein, Bukatman, in his Blade Those are all questions that one could imag- page: Eadweard Muybridge’s photographs of Leland Runner essay, commented on “the emergence of ine being echoed, or at least adapted, in the con- Stanford’s galloping horses marked the beginning of a a new subjectivity constructed at the computer text of film studies. Indeed, Lowood drew a close station or television screen,” that is, the con- comparison. “Game studies means research on new revolution in representation. struction “of a new position from which humans game development and the social and cultural L.A. CICERO could interface with the global, yet hidden, realm contexts of digital games,” he said. “The relation- of data circulation.” ship between the development and study of games The curator for the new film studies program is similar to art versus art history,” or between is Henry Lowood, co-director of the Stanford filmmaking and film studies. Humanities Lab and curator of the Germanic The film studies program will form a vital and History of Science and Technology collec- part of Stanford’s fourth multidisciplinary initia- tions at Stanford University Libraries. Lowood tive, devoted to arts and creativity, which is be- has a good head start as curator of the film stud- ing spearheaded by Bryan Wolf of the Art and Art ies collection, Bukatman said, because Stanford History Department and Jonathan Berger of the has an excellent collection of films and interac- Music Department. tive software and games. But, as with everything else at Stanford, space Lowood also knows a thing or two about and money are issues. The latter was alleviated Bukatman’s interest in subjectivity and screens. somewhat when alumnus and film director Jay He co-directs (with Tim Lenoir, formerly of the Roach gave $1 million in flexible endowment for History Department) “How They Got Game,” a the program, which was matched by the William many-limbed project at the Humanities Lab about and Flora Hewlett Foundation. video games (http://shl.stanford.edu/research/ As for space, for the past several years there how_they_got_game.html). Among its spin-offs has been talk of concentrating Stanford’s vari- was an exhibit at the Yerba Buena Center for the ous arts program in one place to create an “arts Arts in San Francisco called “Bang the Machine: district” adjacent to the Cantor Center for Visual Computer Gaming Art and Artifacts” (http:// Arts. Samuelson believes strongly that studio art, www.ybca.org/inside/press/press03/games.html). art history, film and design (including the School Where Lowood shares common ground with of Engineering’s new Hasso Plattner Institute of many colleagues in film studies is in his interest Design) need to be in the same place. Like people in the creative interaction of players (or perform- at the Medical School or the Engineering School ers), technology and spectators. In October 2004 or any other academic site where new disciplinary he was a referee at the World Cyber Games in partnerships are being forged, she recognizes that San Francisco (which drew a mere 5,000 view- proximity is key. ers; in their home, Korea, they attract 100,000 While the new buildings would be fantastic, people over three days, he said). Such a specta- of course, Bukatman says hE n SRo longer thinks cle, he said, calls into question the meaning of they’re essential at the moment. The program can “performer” and “audience,” as the people in start without them. Indeed, it has. When he intro- the stands, most of them young men, are watch- duced Williams at the Humanities Center, saying ing enlarged screens depicting exactly what the he was doing so on behalf of the “Film Studies player, or performer, is seeing. Program in the Art and Art History Department,” Lowood teaches a course called History of he stopped, amazed at what he had just said. “I “What I love most about Stanford is that from my Computer Game Design, taken mostly by stu- would never have believed I’d ever be saying those first day here, there was an insistence on multi- dents from Computer Science or the Interdisci- words together,” he explained. disciplinarity,” he said. “Film studies can thrive plinary Studies in Humanities honors program Levi, who was hired last year specifically to here. We’re positioning ourselves in the best pos- (http://www.stanford.edu/class/sts145/). He is less help get the program going, is equally amazed. sible way.” WINTER 2006 5 inter action MULTIDICIPLINARY NEWS UPDATED AT http://multi.stanford.edu A System of Collaboration THE STRUCTURES OF MULTIDISCIPLINARITY

ab” may evoke visions of scien- of Research Arthur Bienenstock, “but now we are dent labs, of course, to some degree simply reflects “ tists in white coats; the important entering a period in which the university is ac- the general state of knowledge, both at Stanford thing to note is not what they’re tively encouraging this research.” and beyond. In 1992, for example, the leaders of wearing but that they’re working “Most interdisciplinary work is with just a few the Institute for Mathematical Studies in the So- together. Since 1949, Stanford’s professors and it doesn’t require a huge level of cial Sciences (IMSSS), one of the pioneers in the independent lab system has pro- coherence and organized efforts,” Bienenstock study of computers and learning, decided that af- vided the basis for collaborative, said. “But now we’re taking in a much broader ter more than 30 years the time had come to put it multidisciplinary research here. sphere and we will require an array of capabili- to rest. Some of the institute’s projects were trans- And participants may not be wearing lab coats; in ties much broader than before. So this is different. ferred to the Center for the Study of Language and Lfact, they may not be scientists. We have to meet the needs of the departments but Information, in many ways the natural successor The network of 13 labs embraces an array of also build strengths to make programs work in an to IMSSS. (See story, page 8.) researchers from just about every field. There are organized manner.” Now, three new efforts are in line to become in- physicists at Ginzton, Hansen, Kavli and Geballe, The changes Bienenstock referred to are part of dependent labs, devoted to, respectively, longevity but physicists might also collaborate with the the university’s campaign to exponentially boost (see story, this page), ultrafast science and global Global Climate and Energy Project, where ecol- multidisciplinary research, a campaign in which positioning technology (http://news-service. ogists and natural scientists might also work at the independent labs will play a key role. stanford.edu/news/2005/september28/scpnt- Bio-X or the Institute for the Environment, whose The proximity of collaborators from different 092805.html). social scientists might also find a home at the disciplines has always been a hallmark of Stan- As labs come and go (they come more than they Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, ford. Very few (if any) universities can boast of a go), physical space is something that can both de- where policymakers might also properly belong medical school, hospital, science departments and fine and differentiate them. Some directors insist at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International engineering school within five minutes’ walking on the importance of a separate building; some Studies, which in turn has launched a fellowship distance of one another. The tradition of faculty don’t need a building but do need administrative program with the Humanities Center. (See box, living on campus also has contributed to an at- independence, principally for fundraising; other page 8.) mosphere of multidisciplinary give and take. Bie- research centers are not formal independent labs As disciplines themselves stretch in new ways, nenstock, at a November talk that was part of the at all, but do their multidisciplinary work under their practitioners may find themselves literally all “What Matters to Me and Why” series at Memo- the auspices of one of the seven schools, which over the place. rial Church, remembered that in the early years he works just fine for them. “Stanford has always been happy to accom- met a geologist over a lawn mower, and a research Stanley Peters, a linguist, is of the firm opinion modate interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary project was born. that without the independent lab system, the Cen- research by building centers and labs,” says Dean The coming, going and morphing of indepen- ter for the Study of Language and Information

working with each other or even of know- sensation and locomotion; healthy living From 1997 to 2001 she was director New center ing about each other’s work. The report and disease prevention; and disparities, of the Institute for Research on Women furthermore states that basic research focusing on social and genetic risks and Gender, where for two years she on longevity is often difficult to translate into policy or faced by specific individuals or groups. led a project on aging under the rubric To be independent or to seek a home to implement in such a way as to make a “The goal is to change the nature of of IRWG’s “Difficult Dialogues” program. with others? The road to becoming an difference in people’s lives. human aging,” Carstensen said. “We’re Participants from Stanford and else- independent lab is neither short nor “This will be more interdisciplinary than not going to cure disease. We want to where concluded that there is a clear easy. Some researchers might think the anything else on campus,” Carstensen change the way people live at all ages.” correspondence between gender and costs outweigh the benefits. For others, said confidently in the fall. “The nature of Within that perspective, Carstensen race, on the one hand, and difficulties such as Laura Carstensen, a lifespan the subject naturally embraces all seven and others believe that our lives are in aging, on the other. How one ages developmental psychologist, indepen- schools. There were deans who would organized around a chronology that has a lot to do with who one is. Most dence is essential for the integrity and have liked to house it [in their schools], makes little sense. obviously, the world of the very old is success of the research project. because it will bring in money, but that “The extra years don’t have to come a female world. And it’s an increasingly The future Stanford Center on Lon- would defeat the point.” at the end,” she pointed out. Why not populous world. gevity, directed by Carstensen, is likely Declining the deans’ offers of hospi- pay Social Security benefits to people When Carstensen said that changing to become the university’s next indepen- tality, Carstensen instead chose to work raising children, for example, when they our notion of age involves talking to dent lab. The center’s ultimate aim is to with Bienenstock, whose job, she said, need to be at home? Many old people children, she specifically mentioned the improve the well-being of aging individu- “is to ensure the good of the university are perfectly capable of working and Stanford Center on Adolescence, run als, which means everybody. Carstensen as a whole.” might not need the income then, par- by education Professor William Damon, takes great pains to point out that lon- Carstensen envisions a place, a phys- ticularly if they’ve earned well throughout one of the members of the Provost’s gevity is not a synonym for old age. ical place, where people will be able to their lives. Exploratory Committee on Longevity She began the march to indepen- meet. If the funding goes well, which she Changing our notion of age, she said, (http://www.stanford.edu/group/ dence in 2004, when she met with expects it will, the center should be up “involves talking to children, changing adolescent.ctr/). President John Hennessy, Provost John and running in five years. The building the way universities operate, setting up The Center on Adolescence was Etchemendy and Dean of Research would be a permanent home for staff businesses, intervening in national poli- founded in 1996 with a $1.2 million, Arthur Bienenstock (the latter two both and a temporary home for researchers, cy. We can turn an average of 30 extra two-year grant from the Carnegie Corpo- former directors of independent labs), professionals and policymakers from years into an extraordinary advance in ration of New York to promote multidis- as well as with potential donors, to pro- Stanford and elsewhere. The center human life.” ciplinary research and training. pose a bold, multidisciplinary, freestand- would fund translational research by, for To that end, engineers and physicians The two centers, which have plans to ing research center. example, patent attorneys and entrepre- and social scientists and entrepreneurs work together and might even eventually According to the report issued by neurs, and would have what Carstensen need to put their heads together. “This live together, are models of the differ- the Provost’s Exploratory Committee on called a department of cultural change, coming together is possible because we ent routes leading to multidisciplinary Longevity, which came into existence as where academics, journalists and survey- all face a common problem,” Carstensen research. When Damon, an expert on a result of Carstensen’s proposal, Stan- takers could study and share information said, “and we all need each other in moral development, was hired in 1997 ford is home to a multitude of research- about the aging process. Projects would order to fix things.” from Brown University after a wide-rang- ers in an array of fields relevant to lon- be clustered among five research sec- Carstensen is no stranger to inter- ing, nationwide search, he was given gevity who nonetheless have no way of tions: brain and mind; social innovations; disciplinary research and collaboration. see LONGEVITY, page 8

6 WINTER 2006 MULTIDICIPLINARY NEWS UPDATED AT http://multi.stanford.edu A System of Collaboration

would never have come into existence. It needed we need an animal to care for the administration up independent labs, because eventually the to be an independent lab, he said. of this.’” whole university is going to be an independent “Stanford organizes interdisciplinary research Because each one of these “animals” requires lab,” said Amy Balsom, senior associate dean in different ways; sometimes it’s attached to de- new space, even if it doesn’t have its own building, for finance and administration at the School of partments, to the extent that the department is and new administrative and research resources, Earth Sciences. “We’re going to get more and interdisciplinary,” he said. petitioners must be vetted by more fragmented.” “Sometimes it’s attached to department chairs and the That’s one scenario; another is that Stanford schools. So partly it’s a bu- ‘It’s essential that relevant deans before a for- will run out of space, of which there is a finite reaucratic arrangement, but mal proposal is even submit- amount. Faculty researchers in independent labs Stanford has always sup- departments and schools ted. Once vetted, the matter generally have two offices or spaces; one at the ported weird groups of faculty goes to the dean of research, lab, another at their department. Provost John getting together.” continue to exist .... They and from there to the pro- Etchemendy (himself the former director of an in- “Sometimes,” said Carol vost. University policy RPH dependent lab) told Stanford Report in October Vonder Linden, the assistant are literally the foundation of 2.9 (http://www.stanford. that there is no unallocated space left on campus, dean of research, “a center edu/dept/DoR/rph/2-9.html) though there is unoccupied space. Allocation is needs to be standalone to get the university,’ states specifically that inde- made through schools and departments, yet one the attention it deserves. But pendent labs are “exceptions of the reasons for the pressure on space is the sometimes not.” Vonder Linden said. to the principle of organizing growth of multidisciplinary research. Moving Some centers affiliated with our research programs within off campus, which is one solution, would relieve a school later became indepen- regular academic channels,” the pressure, but it also would work to counter- dent labs. In other instances, and the organizers of the new act that long Stanford tradition of mixing it up as with the Institute for Re- venture therefore must make on campus, and would make it more difficult for search on Women and Gender an ironclad case that their students to participate. and the former Center for Chicano Research, it’s purposes cannot be fulfilled by ordinary means. Not all independent labs require new build- the other way around. Independent labs are not Even with those administrative guarantees in ings or physical proximity. The decision seems to assumed to be permanent entities, either physi- place, there are some who believe more attention depend on the subject matter, existing collabora- cally or administratively. They have a life cycle. will need to be paid to structural issues as multi- tion and the individuals involved. Yet clearly some “When faculty request an independent lab, it disciplinary research becomes the order of the day. physical contact is necessary, if just a meeting means they’re collaborating already,” Vonder Lin- “Stanford needs to find a better way of man- room with a good coffee maker. den pointed out. “They say, ‘We need a structure, aging interdisciplinary work other than setting continued on next page

L.A. CICERO

Psychologist Laura Carstensen, left; teaching assistant Cara Rice, center; and neurologist Thomas Rando are co-teaching a course this quarter called Longevity.

WINTER 2006 7 inter action MULTIDICIPLINARY NEWS UPDATED AT http://multi.stanford.edu L.A. CICERO Professor Byron Reeves, right, is the director of the Center for the Study of Language and Information and is also director and co-founder of Media X.

Stanford University Independent Labs

Bio-X, http://biox.stanford.edu

Center for the Study of Language and Information, http://www-csli.stanford.edu

Edward L. Ginzton Laboratory, http://www.stanford.edu/group/ginzton/index.html

Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, http://fsi.stanford.edu

Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials, http://www.stanford.edu/group/glam Global Climate and Energy Project, The logic of language and learning http://gcep.stanford.edu t should come as no surprise that the for cross-disciplinary collaboration, but also the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, interface between human beings and flexibility and autonomy to go wherever the re- technology is an area teeming with research needs to go. http://www-group.slac.stanford.edu/kipac searchers at Stanford. At present much of that activity is taking place What exactly goes on in that inter- at two such labs: the Center for the Study of Lan- Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning, face? People use tech- guage and Information nology to study how (CSLI) and the Stanford http://scil.stanford.edu people learn. They ob- Center for Innovations in serve how people react—psy- ‘Understanding how people Learning (SCIL). Stanford Humanities Center, chologically,I cognitively, emo- Their missions and re- http://shc.stanford.edu tionally—to technology. They did complex projects, we search often overlap. The invent software that speaks to director of CSLI, Byron thought, would help us Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, users in a language that makes Reeves, for example, is also sense to them; figure out if ba- the director and co-founder http://siepr.stanford.edu/home.html bies actually learn something improve computers,’ of Media X, a partnership from computer screens; study network with private com- Stanford Institute for the Environment, the similarities between human Perry said. panies devoted to studying and artificial brains. In short, interactive technology. Me- http://environment.stanford.edu they explore the limitless fac- dia X is housed in the tech- ets of communication among rich Wallenberg Hall, which Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society, and between humans and ma- is managed by SCIL. Reeves chines. also co-directs a project http://www.stanford.edu/group/siqss/home/home.htm An enterprise like this is an with Roy Pea, co-director obvious candidate for independent labs, which of SCIL, called LIFE, dedicated to figuring out W.W. Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory, provide not only a space, physical and/or virtual, how people learn and also located in Wallenberg http://www.stanford.edu/group/help/

continued from previous page NAS called interdisciplinary research “a body- pact on the participating faculty members’ home contact sport.” departments. According to the worst-case sce- “[Physical] structures respond to the needs Beyond potential physical and administra- nario, researchers could go AWOL, never again to of interdisciplinarity,” said Roy Pea, co-director tive challenges, any university trying to go from be seen by their department, too busy at the new of the Center for Innovations in Learning. But merely accommodating multidisciplinary research lab doing cutting-edge work on the outer limits of likewise, all the interdisciplinary intentions in to encouraging it faces an intellectual challenge: the discipline to pay attention to the business of the world will not bear fruit if researchers can- How does one balance that goal and the goal of their departments or core research needs. not actually be in the same room. One of the top ensuring that department members are the best in There’s a corollary to that scenario: If the wan- recommendations of a 2004 National Academy their ﬁeld and that graduate students receive a rig- dering researcher is a junior faculty member, all of Sciences report, “Facilitating Interdisciplin- orous disciplinary education? that work on the edges is unlikely to be rewarded ary Research,” was that universities foster a col- Among other things, university policy RPH 2.9 at tenure time. laborative environment for researchers, including asks independent lab petitioners to explain how The Ofﬁce of the Dean of Research is certainly physical places; one center director quoted by the the new center will have a negative or positive im- aware of these doomsday visions and, while tak-

Longevity sides,” he added, and they sound a lot at the Center for Educational Research hallway of the pre-existing center was continued from page 6 like the downsides Carstensen wanted at Stanford, a fine building, but one lined with depressing posters announc- to avoid, namely being overly associ- obviously connected to the School of ing the numbers of teen suicides, teen a choice: Make it freestanding or find ated with one field over another. Education. pregnancies and teen drug overdoses. a home for it. Choosing the latter, he “Once you’re in an existing depart- It would be ideal, Damon said, if They’re gone. turned to the School of Education. (Had ment or school, [the university expects] the university had “a separate pot for Young people have a different atti- the incoming director been from anoth- everything to come from them. It’s multidisciplinary space.” tude toward aging than older people, er field, he or she and the center could a snowball effect, so we’re more “I’m not complaining,” he hastened Carstensen said, noting that Damon’s have been housed in the director’s and more slanted toward education,” to add. “Stanford is a great place, and work therefore will be invaluable to respective school or department.) Damon said. this center will exist in perpetuity. But her project. Damon called their shared “I went to Education for practical It is also difficult to attract the inter- there are tradeoffs.” interest “successful aging.” reasons,” he said, “because I didn’t est of researchers outside the field His particular research is called “Younger people see time as infinite; want to have to fundraise for staff and of education, he said. And, because “youth purpose,” an approach that we recognize limits,” she said. “Older infrastructure.” School of Education physical space is allotted by depart- emphasizes the aspirations and poten- people gather less information and are Dean Deborah Stipek gives him all that, ments and schools, which by definition tial of young people rather than the pit- more focused on emotionally meaning- leaving him free to raise funds solely are rooted in disciplines, his new home falls and dangers they encounter. When ful things. But when younger people’s for research. (he is currently in Cypress Hall) will be he arrived at Stanford, he said, the relationship to time changes, and sud- “But I’ll be frank; there are down-

8 WINTER 2006 MULTIDICIPLINARY NEWS UPDATED AT http://multi.stanford.edu

L.A. CICERO

The Center for the Study of Language and Information, which is housed in Cordura Hall, is among the independent laboratories with their own building.

(http://life-slc.org/). the relatively new ﬁeld of computer science. Their the computers got much, much smarter, the phi- Altogether, Reeves said, there are some 10 cen- mission was to develop software and other tech- losophers became less valuable. ters, labs or groups on campus studying language- nology that responded to the structures and needs When CSLI was born, it was well funded related technologies and the intersection between of human intelligence and language. thanks to a start-up grant from the Systems De- the human sciences and technology. “The aim was to get computers to be more in- velopment Foundation, an indirect offshoot of Back in the 1980s, when Apple was hiring phi- telligent,” recalled John Perry, the Henry Wald- the RAND Corporation. (The foundation had losophy graduate students to apply their powers grave Stuart Professor of Philosophy and a for- issued a request for multidisciplinary proposals, of abstract thinking to the challenges of comput- mer CSLI director. “Understanding how people and when those from Stanford, SRI International ers, a group of scholars at Stanford founded CSLI did complex projects, we thought, would help us and Xerox PARC looked similar, SDF suggested to study the emerging science of information, improve computers. So philosophy was an impor- they combine their efforts, which they did.) The computing and cognition. They hailed from lin- tant part of the mix. You had computer scientists money went into projects, some outstanding guistics, philosophy, education, psychology and reading Heidegger, for goodness’ sake.” But as continued on next page

ing them seriously, insists the dangers are both ex- As with any momentous change, if all the parts One solution is to adjust the rules on hiring, aggerated and manageable. don’t transform together and at the same speed, promotion and tenure. Over the years, schools Vonder Linden is emphatic that “it’s essential there are bound to be imbalances and inequities, have occasionally shared posts (Bienenstock, in that departments and schools continue to exist. at least for a while. Prime among them is the re- fact, was hired in 1967 by Engineering and Hu- There’s no desire or need to ever, ever do away ality that multidisciplinary research is simultane- manities and Sciences). Such über-billets are deﬁ- with schools. They are literally the foundation of ously rewarded and punished, or at least facili- nitely in Stanford’s future, according to virtually the university, and education within the school tated and impeded. One can’t be at the periphery all the center directors and researchers consulted structure is vital.” and at the core simultaneously, yet that’s what ap- for this article. The prospect is a truly exciting Disciplines, according to Bienenstock, “are like pears to be needed. one for many of the leading players. One of the the driver’s license that allows graduate students “We’re stuck at a funny time,” said Anne Han- reasons the environmental and international ini- and ideas to move from place to place. So we have nigan, associate vice president for research admin- tiatives have legs is precisely that they will include to keep disciplines strong.” But, he added, “there istration, speaking last summer. “We have paral- new billets not conﬁned to any particular school. is interesting research at the borders.” lel structures that aren’t interfacing nicely.” continued on next page

denly it’s not infinite because they’re have a role; people age differently in the two instructors agreed that the research network and soliciting pro- considering a subset of time, then they different parts of the world, so the class is going well and that students posals for projects and visitors to behave differently.” Freeman Spogli Institute for Interna- appear to be engaged. the center. By 2007-08, according to At that point, she said, “Students tional Studies could have a role. “It’s also notable that every sin- the provost’s report, a physical space get it. They can see that age is a mat- Brain function certainly is a crucial gle faculty member we’ve invited to should be ready to house at least ter of time, and they can relate.” piece of aging, and it is with, precisely, attend as a guest has enthusiastically temporary flexible research space. The Carstensen envisions the Center on a neurologist that Carstensen is prepar- accepted the invitation,” Carstensen long-term plan calls for a space simi- Longevity having links to multidisci- ing the way for the future independent said. Those guests represent six of the larly innovative and flexible as the Clark plinary centers and institutes beyond lab this quarter by team-teaching an university’s seven schools. “It’s exciting Center, home to Bio-X. the Center on Adolescence. For exam- undergraduate class called Longevity to be able to change the way younger “Ultimately,” the report says, “a ple, new devices will enable aging (Psychology 102). Her partner in this people are thinking about aging indi- space that houses the entire opera- people to maintain their participation venture is Dr. Thomas Rando, a winner viduals and aging societies. I think the tion is important. It is clear that the in active daily life, so the Institute of last year of the prestigious National course will become an integral part power of proximity cannot be over- Design could have a role; public-opin- Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer of the [center’s] ‘culture change’ mis- stated.” ion surveys can point to widely held Award for his work on stem cells and sion.” biases and needs, so the Institute for degenerative disease. Next year, Carstensen will start Research in the Social Sciences could Just three weeks into the quarter, building a national and international

WINTER 2006 9 inter action MULTIDICIPLINARY NEWS UPDATED AT http://multi.stanford.edu L.A. CICERO Linguistics Professor Tom Wasow is a former director of the Center for the Study of Language and Information and co-founder of the Symbolic Systems Program.

gutted and then equipped with offices and classrooms. Five of the classrooms are managed by SCIL, though they can be used by anyone who applies; they are showpieces of what technology (both high and low) can do for learning. In a marriage of genius and common sense, the five “flexible classrooms” allow students with laptops to use their own cursors to get onto big common screens, save their work on a common website, and work collectively on collapsible whiteboards and then photograph their results onto the website. This ability to employ technology while simultaneously recapturing and nur- turing the collaborative mood of the classroom is emblematic of the mission of SCIL, which was launched as an independent lab in 2002. The top floor of Wallenberg Hall provides space for some of the more remarkable endeavors of SCIL, CSLI or both. Chief among them is the Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) project, which in 2004 received a five-year, $25 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). In conjunction with colleagues from the University of Washington and SRI International, researchers continued from previous page C. Edwards Professor in the Department of Com- here are using technology to, in the words of Roy munication. His office is in Wallenberg Hall, with Pea, co-director of SCIL and a professor at the hires (including logician John Etchemendy, Per- Media X and SCIL, but across campus from Cor- School of Education, “develop a science of learn- ry’s graduate advisee and current provost) and a dura Hall. So what does being or not being an in- ing.” Reflecting the NSF’s willingness to embrace beautiful new building, Cordura Hall. Since the dependent lab mean? multi-institutional and multidisciplinary projects, money ran out, researchers have raised their own, Above all, he said, the value is practical. The there are five PIs; Pea is one, and one of the re- which they’ve found mostly at the National Sci- labs administer multidisciplinary research, manage search “strand leaders” is Reeves. ence Foundation and at various military agencies. grant money and aren’t bogged down with instruc- “We could never have done this without the Linguist Stanley Peters, for example, another tion and hiring decisions like departments are. independent labs,” said Reeves, referring to the former CSLI director and the current director of However, they are not necessarily physical enti- fact that the LIFE award was made to SCIL. “It the Computational Semantics Laboratory, which ties. combines neuroscience, anthropology, curriculum studies the intersection of linguistics and com- “New buildings are overestimated,” he said, development and the humanities, and it’s multi- puter science (also called computational linguis- though he admits he likes Cordura Hall. “The campus.” LIFE itself has spawned some 30 re- tics), is working on a project funded by the Office question is, what level of administration and for- search projects. of Naval Research to see how (or if) robots can malism is necessary to create interdisciplinarity?” Also on Wallenberg’s fourth floor—what Pea teach humans in a language that is mutually intel- In his view, you need a light rather than a heavy called the “mix-it-up space”—is another child of ligible and accessible. model, you need “stuff you can do, with boots on CSLI, Media X, where Reeves wears yet another One of CSLI’s earliest offspring was not a proj- the ground.” If you’ve got that, then a common of his hats. Media X brings together researchers, ect at all but a program: Symbolic Systems, which building, while nice, is less important. faculty members, students and industry design- currently is authorized by the Faculty Senate to “But faculty can’t do that on their own,” he ers to study and develop interactive technology. grant bachelor’s and master’s degrees through added. “So we stake out a middle ground, try to Among the dozens of projects it has funded since 2008 (http://symsys.stanford.edu/). create a hub for a virtual network, which is in- 2002 is one led by Pea called “Science Educa- “John Perry and I were running CSLI,” linguist credibly valuable. The lighter you stay, the easier tion Network of Sensors,” one led by Reeves in- Tom Wasow said, “and John said, ‘You know, we it is for institutions to come and go. If they have vestigating how computer-supported stories can really ought to start up an undergraduate pro- their own building, they never go.” change people and one led by Wasow on “Learn- gram.’ I said, ‘Great idea,’ and we contacted peo- In celebrating CSLI’s existence, Peters and Wa- ing English via Robust Conversation.” Many of ple in computer science, philosophy, psychology sow particularly praised its internship program, the Media X researchers are affiliated with Sym- and linguistics. We hammered out a curriculum, funded by the university, which pairs undergradu- bolic Systems; they come from communication, I wrote the boilerplate text on the reasons for the ates with professors or postdocs over the summer. engineering, law, linguistics, medicine, psychol- program, and we got it approved.” Bragging on Wasow’s behalf, Peters said he has ogy and education, among other areas (http://me- The program, administratively housed in the between three and five SymSys interns a year at diax.stanford.edu/). Linguistics Department, today graduates between the Computational Semantics Laboratory and Media X projects are funded by the industry 40 and 60 students a year. Beyond occupying they’re all wonderful. partners, which at present number around 30 some of its space, SymSys affects Linguistics in For Perry, the independent labs “have to pro- companies worldwide. They establish the fields to another way only fitting for an interdisciplinary vide people with something they don’t have from be researched, and Media X then issues requests program. Over the years, Wasow said, because their departments, and that varies from depart- for proposals. SymSys and Linguistics students take many of ment to department.” Some people need money; In a way, the organizational mesh of research the same classes, the far more numerous techies that was the case with the philosophers when and development about the interaction of humans end up driving the debates, and Linguistics has CSLI started. Others need more space for them- and technology is as complex as the object of the changed as a result. selves; still others need a venue where they can study itself. Twenty years ago, no one could have “SymSys is one of the most successful IDPs [in- meet with researchers from other fields, which imagined the directions technology would take or terdisciplinary programs],” Wasow said proudly. was the case with the people from SRI Interna- how the intimate relations between humans and “It fills a huge gap, because no other program tional. their inventions would change the way we think combines fuzzy and techie work like it does. Stu- The present-day Wallenberg Hall occupies the and learn. Visionary and audacious researchers dents can study both operating systems and how last portion of the Quad repaired after the 1989 at Stanford figured out ahead of time that they the mind works. It sucks up the best students like Loma Prieta earthquake. With a grant from two needed to be there. They’re still there, changing a magnet.” of the private Swedish Wallenberg foundations, with the times, both catching up to innovations Reeves, the current CSLI director, is the Paul supplemented by the university, the building was and leading the way.

L.A. CICERO continued from previous page Bienenstock, at the center of Stanford’s bet that multidisciplinary work is a powerful way of both “We’ll work out a mechanism,” Bienenstock advancing scientific knowledge and solidifying said, with the wisdom acquired from years of ad- Stanford’s preeminence, is eager to move forward. ministrative and policy work, both at Stanford “Let me make something clear,” he said. and in Washington, D.C. “We’ll face problems “Whenever you go down a new path, you’re one at a time. You just watch out, proceed along bound to encounter problems.” The implication, and be careful.” of course, is that those who seek them will also Balsom, too, though concerned about the specter encounter solutions. of the sorcerer’s apprentice creating more and more autonomous centers, is conﬁdent Stanford can ﬁg- ure this out. “Every faculty member who comes from outside says we can do things better here than elsewhere. But it’s not pretty. The delivery happens because we have good personal relationships and Arthur Bienenstock, dean of research and graduate there’s a lot of trust. You work with colleagues across the disciplines, and things happen.” policy, oversees the university’s 13 independent labs. 10 WINTER 2006 MULTIDICIPLINARY NEWS UPDATED AT http://multi.stanford.edu

cover something that’s really new. When you’re Rhoten’s study for the NSF, which examined Funding in the middle, you discover incremental things. the interactions of researchers at five NSF-funded continued from page 3 They’re important, but exciting things happen at centers, suggested that physical and intellectual interfaces. So the idea that funding agencies might structures are not unrelated. For effective mul- Extramural Research Administration. The presi- want to encourage this is appealing to me.” tidisciplinary research to take place, she and her dent’s latest budget request, announced 6 Febru- What can get lost, he said, is the intimacy of colleagues found, centers cannot be “simple re- ary, leaves the NIH below the rate of inflation for small-group research and the possibilities it al- configurations designed to attract new funds to research in the coming year. lows. A teacher and a couple of postdocs with the old research.” They must be populated by people The NSF did better, however, as Bush prom- same sort of training can easily shift direction, characterized as “hubs” or as “bridges,” people ised to double the agency’s budget by 2016. His improvise, step around a problem as its contours whose presence enables good research to take 2007 request was for $6.02 billion, an increase change. A large interdisciplinary group cannot. place not only because of their knowledge or of 7.9 percent over the previous year. The 2006 Yet Ferrell buys into multidisciplinary research ability but also because of their connections and budget represented about a 2.4 percent increase sufficiently that he recently applied for a large con- attraction. over 2005. sortium grant from the NIH in systems biology. A virtual community will not do, in other Speaking weeks before the 2007 budget request “My bet is that if we had some people with words. A physical one is necessary. And the extent was announced, Jean Feldman, of the NSF’s office expert knowledge in multiple disciplines, people to which that physical community will be rooted of Budget, Finance and Award Management, said who could do computational and experimental bi- in disciplines or not and how many walls will she did not expect a qualitative change in funding ology, that would glue together the discipline and have to be torn down or left standing are among priorities even if the budget were to remain flat. the stickiest quandaries facing the architects of “A good proposal is a good proposal,” she said, the new multidisciplinarity. referring to multidisciplinary grants, “but we’ll be For Byron Reeves, director of Media X and the able to support less.” Center for the Study of Language and Informa- At the same time, the federal government is tion, both of which study the interaction of hu- increasingly reluctant to reimburse universities mans and technology, disciplines are the guard- for certain expenses. According to the Chronicle ians of details and they are essential. of Higher Education, which cited a study by the ‘Since the genome revolution, “The biggest critique of interdisciplinary work Council on Governmental Relations, research is that people are fast and loose with the details,” universities are losing several million dollars an- we’ve had a huge need for he said. Departments and disciplines ensure that nually in unreimbursed costs. Overhead rates are researchers do not get sloppy. For that very rea- not growing in tandem with research expenses. computer people, for cross-talk,’ son, he’s not enthusiastic about the prospect of “What I see is just more unfunded mandates interdisciplinary appointments. coming down the line,” Stanford’s Bienenstock said Greenberg Koseff, on the other hand, who says he knows told the publication in August. no other way of working than in interdisciplinary For Jeff Koseff, a civil and environmental en- of the Medical School. teams, said that as long as programs and insti- gineer whose funding generally comes from the tutes such as his cannot hire faculty, they cannot NSF, a shrinking pot is the decisive impediment progress. At present, they receive half-billets that to multidisciplinary research. Koseff, co-director are shared with departments, which then impose of the Stanford Institute for the Environment, said conditions. The interdisciplinary centers can ap- the NSF’s centers are sometimes less than what point senior fellows, but not tenure-track faculty. they appear to be, and he expressed optimism that The relevance of this on funding is that the the university to some degree will be able to make agencies are well aware that while they go about up the difference by funding adventurous multi- promoting research on the boundaries and in the disciplinary projects on its own. interstices, the protagonists of that research re- But there’s a clear limit to what universities can side in departments. If the protagonists are junior do, he said, and the financial onus must be on the faculty, they may be under pressure to produce federal government. University presidents “need make us more effective, sort of like someone with research that is more confined than they would to get together and make a statement and argue an M.D. and a Ph.D.,” said Ferrell, who himself wish. And regardless of their rank, they may be that [multidisciplinary environmental research] is has both degrees. “People who have real expertise physically isolated from colleagues in other de- important for the world,” he insisted. Big corpora- in real physical and biological science are a real partments with whom they share projects and tions, if they could be made to see that their long- hope for the future. I don’t really think you need grant money. run interests are at stake (what happens when we to be a sophisticated biologist in the physical sci- Indeed, if for Koseff billets are the main imped- run out of air, water and oil, for example?), un- ences. You can train people to do both.” iment to interdisciplinary research at Stanford, for doubtedly would contribute, he said, and if they “Both NIH and NSF are trying to be progres- Greenberg it is physical space. What he called the can be made to play by the same rules as the gov- sive, but it’s hard because nobody’s got a great “centerpieces” of the School of Medicine are four ernment regarding freedom of research and intel- idea on how to separate a crackpot experiment major multidisciplinary programs in search of a lectual property, then Koseff sees no problem. from a real experiment,” he said. “It’s easy to home. Private fundraising is under way to ensure Beyond the question of resources, there are tell if a project is definitely going to work—that’s that the physicians, lab scientists and computer impediments of a more scholarly sort. There is a incremental science. It’s harder to come up with scientists can truly cohabitate. place for large-scale multidisciplinary research, ways to fund imaginative science.” “Since the genome revolution, we’ve had a huge some scientists say, but there also are drawbacks. (At times, multidisciplinary research at Stan- need for computer people, for cross-talk,” he said. Like a lot of people, not all scientists enjoy ford comes to resemble an ensemble performance. “The more you can mix people geographically, working in large groups, at least not all the time. McAdams, of Woerner’s team, also works with the better.” And, he added, echoing an assessment Greenberg at the School of Medicine said that in Ferrell. In October, McAdams won what he ear- in a 2004 National Academy of Sciences study fact the best research is usually conducted by in- lier had described as “a pretty darn big grant”— on interdisciplinary research (http://www.nap. dividuals. “Pound for pound, the School of Medi- an $18 million Department of Energy microbiol- edu/catalog/11153.html), “students are the engine cine is the best place in the world for grants,” he ogy award comprising a dozen researchers at six that creates interaction among the faculty.” They said, and most of that money goes to individuals institutions. “Somebody has to take the bull by physically travel from one lab to the next, cross- or very small groups. the horns,” said the former Lockheed physicist, pollinating, spreading the word, carrying equip- James Ferrell, a biochemist and chair of the whose grant-writing ability has aided many col- ment and, at least figuratively, breaching walls. Department of Molecular Pharmacology, also has leagues, including his wife, molecular biologist Koseff’s Institute for the Environment also is his doubts, though, like Greenberg, he sees advan- Lucy Shapiro.) looking forward to having its own place, in the tages on both sides. If money and habits can get in the way of future Science and Engineering Quad. But, of “I’m ambivalent about interdisciplinary re- changes in research and funding practices, an course, that requires funding. So in the mean- search,” he said. “The upside is that it’s always even greater problem is the disjuncture between time, he’s keeping busy. “Find a great problem, the case that on the boundaries of different disci- categories of knowledge and the structures that then find the people and work together,” he said. plines and subdisciplines there’s a chance to dis- literally house those categories. “That’s it.”

Investigator support multidisciplinary research, we’re sum is divided into subcontracts, with continued from page 3 already doing a lot.” credit apportioned to each one. If one One Stanford researcher who fully subcontractor fails to deliver the goods, themselves by submitting collaborative agrees with Feldman is Jeff Koseff, a the corresponding department pays the proposals, each one a subset of one professor of civil and environmental engi- price. The NSF, meanwhile, stays out of large project, each one with its own prin- neering, director of the Stanford Institute the way. ‘The NSF has made it cipal investigator and budget. for the Environment, and longtime cham- The obvious problem, Antonakos “The NSF will have a far easier road very easy. I’ve got to pion and protagonist of interdisciplinary pointed out, is that making departments than the NIH because we’ve already scientific research. ultimately responsible for what is sup- hand it to them,’ solved a lot of these problems,” said “The NSF has made it very easy,” he posed to be interdisciplinary in some Hahn’s counterpart at the NSF, Jean Feld- Koseff said. said. “I’ve got to hand it to them.” way undermines the whole point. But man. “And we’ll continue down that road.” Senior Associate Dean Eleanor Anton- bureaucratic adjustments can move only What the agency now calls sub-principal akos, also at the Engineering School, so quickly. investigators or co-principal investigators explained that adjusting a grant’s man- “The nature of science has changed,” will become multiple principal investiga- agement to the facts of divided research the NIH’s Hahn said. “It’s time for us to tors, for example. “But in terms of sub- responsibility is not difficult. The lump catch up.” stance and in terms of how it allows us to

WINTER 2006 11 inter action PHOTOS BY L.A. CICERO

‘Feminism implies critique,’ From left: Historian Estelle Freedman was a founder of Feminist Stud- Eckert said. ies; English Professor Andrea Lunsford served as director during the 2004-05 academic year; linguist Penny Eckert is the current director. Feminist Studies: ‘Making connections’ few years ago, when the femi- can’t do that within a single major.” regular meetings with IRWG’s graduate fellows, nist studies major was coming One of Eckert’s favorite examples of great fem- who hail from a variety of disciplines. up for its periodic renewal, inist scholarship is a path-breaking article that “Some people complain feminism is ‘just poli- someone in a position of au- appeared in 1991 in Signs, the pioneering femi- tics,’” Freedman said. “Well, so is democracy. thority asked the program’s nist journal, which was edited at Stanford’s Cen- We’re part of humanity, of humanism. All knowl- director why Stanford even ter for Research on Women (IRWG’s predecessor) edge is political. We represent an analytical ap- needed such a thing. Why in the 1980s. “The Egg and the Sperm: How Sci- proach, and we won’t deny our connection to feminist studies? Why an in- ence Has Constructed a Romance Based on Ste- politics.” terdisciplinary program at all? reotypical Male-Female Roles” was a study of the “But,” she said, “there is no political test in our AThe program’s founder, historian Estelle Freed- language and narrative of reproductive biology. program. Everyone who wants to teach, can.” man, was not present at that conversation, but she Assumptions of gender roles turn out not only to It takes a particularly strong commitment for has an answer. have influenced the way in which reproduction faculty and students to become involved with the “Look at the world,” said Freedman, the Edgar was described (female processes are wasteful and Feminist Studies Program. E. Robinson Professor in United States History. passive, male processes are energetic and produc- Students majoring in feminist studies are re- “Read the newspaper through the lens of gender. tive) but to have missed much of the complexity of quired to take an introductory class, Feminist It’s everywhere. Internationally, look at Iraq, look what actually goes on inside men’s and women’s Studies 101, seminars in methods and theory, and at rape, look at birth control. Domestically, the bodies. It is the reproduction, as it were, of gender a “practicum,” which amounts to an internship hot political issues of the day are gay marriage stereotypes at the cellular level. plus a follow-up senior seminar. Students have and abortion. Students, no matter what they end A study like that, Eckert said, could not take served as interns with non-governmental organi- up doing in life, have to be educated.” place in a traditional biology department—though zations, at the U.S. Department of Labor, in class- “We wanted to be on the edge, we wanted to it might well take place in the Program in Human rooms and hospitals, and with the Feminist Ma- apply a critical, analytical perspective and explore Biology, one of Stanford’s other IDPs. Perhaps not jority Foundation, to name a few. everything through the lens of feminism,” she coincidentally, a sizeable number of students in All classes except 101 and the practicum are added, referring to the program’s foundations. feminist studies classes come from the Human Bi- cross-listed in the Feminist Studies Program and What is called the Program in Feminist Studies ology Program, Freedman noted. another department. One problem Eckert pointed at Stanford may be called something else at other A similar example was offered by Strober: to is that no core faculty member’s department universities. Some of the women’s studies pro- “Feminist economics,” she said, has to be more is willing to cross-list the practicum because stu- grams dating back to the 1970s have changed their than studying, say, women and the labor market, dents in the course are, by definition, feminist names in recent years, usually adding “gender.” or women and day care, or women and salaries. studies majors, not majors in the instructor’s Program Director Penny Eckert, a linguist, is Breaking through, creating that autonomous field, home department. So the program has recruited proud of the name here. “Feminism implies cri- seemed impossible to Strober, whose disciplinary a succession of instructors, who may be excellent tique,” she says. “Gender implies a more agnostic training was deeply rooted in economics. One but are not tenure-track faculty. approach.” day, however, she came across a paper by another “We need more dedicated faculty lines,” Freed- It also implies crossing disciplines, or at least economist, Julie Nelson, who seemed to have man said. “There need to be rewards for faculty redefining them. For Myra Strober, a labor econo- pulled it off. It turned out Nelson had graduate who teach in IDPs,” she added, “some kind of mist and a founding director of Stanford’s Insti- degrees in both economics and feminist studies. course credit for starting an IDP course, or sum- tute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG), “So she didn’t have blinders, she could think back mer money, or something.” feminism is multidisciplinary, not interdisciplin- and forth,” Strober explained. She could become It’s a small program, of course—there were ary. In her mind, there are very few feminist interdisciplinary. 16 graduates in 2002, 17 in 2003, and around scholars today whose work truly is interdisciplin- Freedman, who has taught the Feminist Stud- 20 majors now—but it is steady and popular. ary, integrating elements and theories of various ies Program core course for years, asks students at Some 1,000 students a year take feminist studies fields to create something entirely new and auton- the end of each quarter to fill out a questionnaire. courses, including repeats. omous. Interdisciplinarity will only happen, she Among other things, they are asked to complete Students come motivated for different reasons, said, when there is a critical mass of doctoral pro- the sentence, “What I learned in this class was….” and it’s often hard to pin down where the interest grams in women’s studies or feminist studies. Every year it’s the same, she said. Students learn comes from. Often it’s a particular instructor or “That’s an enormous undertaking, and it’s re- that feminism is not just one thing. teaching assistant who draws them in. Freedman ally critical that it happen,” she said. “We claim the label of ‘feminist studies,’ but remembered a couple of years in the 1990s when In earlier years, the Feminist Studies Program we define it very broadly,” she insisted. “This a sorority member was a major, and as a result the at Stanford, like other Interdisciplinary Programs program has always been about making connec- classes suddenly were full of her sorority sisters. (IDPs), was subjected to the criticism that it was tions.” One year a Stanford Dolly showed up. She liked it. not sufficiently rigorous, that it was not real schol- The blurb of Freedman’s most recent book, No Back in 1981, when the Feminist Studies Pro- arship. Turning Back (Ballantine 2002), a history of fem- gram started at Stanford, there were students In reply, Eckert points to the quality of the pro- inism, refers to it as an “interdisciplinary book.” whose parents would not allow them to be ma- gram’s students and teachers. “I became interdisciplinary as a result of be- jors, Freedman remembered. That doesn’t tend “Feminism is not simply a movement that hap- ing a feminist,” she said. The book relies upon a to happen anymore. Today, many students were pened and it’s over,” she said last fall, speaking wide range of disciplines that she became famil- raised by feminists, both male and female. That after a yearlong sabbatical, during which time the iar with through her teaching assistants and from might make members of the faculty feel old, but it directorship was taken over by Andrea Lunsford, colleagues at IRWG, with which the Program in also shows that good ideas eventually, especially a professor of English and director of the Program Feminist Studies shares a home in Serra House. with the help of good university programs such in Writing and Rhetoric. “It’s a continuing, evolv- Indeed, Lunsford said one of the most exciting as Feminist Studies, change the way we live our ing, philosophical and analytical tradition. You parts of being program director for a year was her lives.

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