Virtual Brown Bag Talk: Dr. Michael O`Rourke

“Facilitating Interdiscplinary Research Collaboration in Africa”

Interdisciplinary research collaboration is a complex mode of research practice that involves integration of different disciplinary perspectives. One motivation for this type of research is that complex problems demand complex responses. While interdisciplinary research obliges, it does so by introducing a host of different perspectives that are not typically easy to integrate. Interdisciplinary research is even more challenging when you involve differences along other dimensions, e.g., institutions and countries. In this talk, I describe a facilitation effort that I direct — the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative — and work we’ve done in East Africa. Focusing on our collaboration with a multinational, multi-institutional, and multidisciplinary project that addresses woody invasive plants in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania, I’ll discuss opportunities and challenges that have helped make this one of our most stimulating and successful collaborations.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Dr. Michael O’Rourke
Director, MSU Center for Interdisciplinarity

Michael O’Rourke is Professor of Philosophy and faculty in AgBioResearch and Environmental Science & Policy at Michigan State University. He is Director of the MSU Center for Interdisciplinarity (http://c4i.msu.edu/) and Director of the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative, an NSF-sponsored research initiative that investigates philosophical approaches to facilitating interdisciplinary research (http://tdi.msu.edu/). His research interests include epistemology, communication and epistemic integration in collaborative, cross-disciplinary research, and linguistic communication between intelligent agents.

Thursday, April 9th, 12:00 – 1:00 pm

Zoom link: https://msu.zoom.us/j/883966068
Password: please reach out to Julie Sinclair, sincla53@msu.edu