We privilege transdisciplinary approaches to research. Trandisciplinarity stimulates creativity, fresh thinking, and the creation of new concepts that can be rapidly put to work. This is something that we actively put into practice on a day-to-day basis. For this piece, we asked a team of Knology researchers to talk about how transdisciplinarity informs their work here, and about what they've learned from working with people in different fields. Several common themes can be seen in their responses, and taken together, these speak to what it means to work with Knology. Among the central findings of our conversation were:

Question 1: What are the fundamental insights from your discipline that shape how you show up to do our work?

Melina Sherman [Communication]

My discipline is a bit of a mixed bag, partially because "communication" and "communication studies" can be interpreted to mean so many different things. For me, communication is culture, which essentially means anything that has to do with human values, traditions, exchanges, experiences, etc. Inevitably then, communication is also about all the domains with which culture is intertwined: Economy, Technology, Society, Institutions, and the list goes on. The fact that no one in communication has yet to provide me with a satisfactory definition of what the field is and what its boundaries are is, in my eyes, a huge advantage. It's advantageous because it has allowed me to explore all sorts of different research avenues—from gender performance in electronic music subcultures to pharmaceutical branding to the cultural construction of addiction. Communication has given me the gift of both becoming and remaining theoretically promiscuous, methodologically liberated, and always, always, intellectually stimulated.

Rebecca Joy Norlander [Human Science, Human Rights]

Human Science is not a widely taught degree in the U.S., but it has served me particularly well at Knology. The way I often describe it is like social science, but with an emphasis on the human experience within social systems. It's inherently transdisciplinary, so even though PhD programs tend to be narrow & deep when it comes to developing expertise, my program prioritized the integration of knowledge across disciplines. It also got at epistemological questions about knowledge itself—how do we know what we know? In Human Science research, the researcher is always contextualized. Similarly, at Knology, I take a constructivist view and acknowledge my place within the research. I coupled this with a specialization in Transformative Social Change. Whereas Human Science was much more theory based, Transformative Social Change emphasized applied research. Both are fundamental to what I do at Knology and our mission as an organization. Last but not least, my dissertation was about human rights education, a field of study that is relatively new but broadly applicable in both its methods (participatory) and its content (the human rights principles and values we support in our work).

Jena Barchas-Lichtenstein [Linguistic Anthropology]

Anthropology at its best is about attention to power and context. I think about those two issues constantly, especially the key feminist anthropological starting point that "there is no view from nowhere," which I first heard from Susan Gal. (Citation, both formal and informal, and recognition of the paths where ideas come from is another ever-important issue—which I first learned about from Jules Weiss and Sara Ahmed.) Linguistic anthropology adds the lens that everything we do as people boils down to symbolic communication in interaction. The microdynamics of interaction are the building blocks of the macro structures of society.

Johann Chacko [Political Science]

I come from two homes—political science and area studies (the Middle East and South Asia specifically). The inherently transdisciplinary nature of area studies was a very useful preparation for the way Knology tackles its research mission. For me that means the habit of transitioning from one disciplinary lens to another, or even departing from them for something else, based on what works best in making sense of what we're looking at as opposed to, say, a goal of strengthening or expanding an individual discipline. Political Science as a discipline is far narrower than area studies, although it has a long-standing habit of borrowing bodies of work from the other social and behavioral sciences –particularly economics, psychology, anthropology and communications–which also frequently grapple with fundamentally political questions. But political science still offers something distinctly valuable when it grapples with the same questions in the context of political units of analysis, i.e., polities. Polities are structures and they have their own dynamics which shape the agency of the actors operating in and around them. The political behavior of individuals and institutions is of course never the whole story, but it is an essential part of every human story. My goal is to tease out those stories, and weave them in with the other pieces that other social and behavioral scientists have found.

John Voiklis [Psychology: Cognitive, Social, Developmental]

I show up to work assuming that people have minds, and that those minds have been shaped by both eons of evolution and countless interactions with people and things. Evolution tells me something about some of the limits of mind, and the interactions open up the possibilities for circumventing those limits as people share knowledge and know-how across time and space. At the "macro" scale, these interactions culminate in what people call groups or communities or institutions or, occasionally, super-organisms. The notion of a super-organism is useful because, in some ways, these "macro structures" sometimes appear to have minds of their own. Beyond the shared knowledge that moves across constituting members, these super-organisms appear to have their own desires and preferences. These are the social-moral norms that set the range of possible desires and preferences that the constitutive members of these "macro structures" might consider. Like Jena, though, I see these "macro structures" as the product of ongoing "microdynamics of interaction." From this perspective, norms exist to the extent and for as long as a particular set of people praise or criticize one another for performing or avoiding a particular set of behaviors. Knology's Behaviors research approach looks for (and tries to predict) the "microdynamics of interaction" that instigate new norms, enforce existing norms, and interrupt limiting norms.

John Fraser [Conservation Psychology]

My training is a hybrid of clinical psychology, the sociological study of public process, environmental systems, experimental performance art and film, sustainable urban planning, and professional architecture. I'm both a psychologist and architect, but my Ph.D. is in environmental studies with a minor in clinical psychology. I'm considered one of the founders of conservation psychology because I was part of the group that workshopped the idea, but mostly my route to this work is a hodge-podge of self-directed education, so my disciplines include all of those professional practices, an odd fascination with French Post-Structuralism, critical pedagogies, a decade of Daoist philosophy, and a love for the utility of structural equation modeling.

My research into the role of collective identity (a hybrid theory that lives somewhere between sociology and psychology) acknowledges that mental processes are shaped by the values and norms of groups. Individuals sense of self as part of the collective can mark the periphery and boundary conditions, but continue to revolve and interact around an ideal of that identity in their collective imagination. Therefore, I tend to think about how we map both the center and periphery at the same time, understanding that each person will interact based on where they believe they are in an idealized Venn diagram. As a social psychologist, my work has shown people prefer to delegate decisions to the group that provides them a sense of self-worth or love. It's a pretty useful way of explaining behaviors in riots and protests, movements, and social networks because we start with the assumption that people prefer to follow a path made by those who share their love, even if that path is a road to ruin or emancipation. With the aim of protecting the nature on which all life depends, we aim to use these tools to promote actions that nurture the earth because earth systems sustain our lives, loves, and pleasures.

Elliott Bowen [History]

At first glance, it might seem like having a historian at Knology would not be that beneficial, because our work focuses on solving contemporary problems—on improving things in the here and now. But consider our mission: "producing practical social science for a better world." The word "better" is an inherently historical one, because it's rooted in ideas about change over time—specifically, ideas about progress from past to present. In order to make the world a "better" place, I would argue, we need to know about how processes of change happen. We need to know what accounts for things getting better or worse. How do things get better? How exactly has social sciences research contributed to positive social change? If we know what worked and what didn't in the past, we're in a much better position to secure a better world for ourselves in the present and future.

These are things I'm always thinking about here, because most of our projects unfold over the course of multiple years. And when doing so, I'm constantly being reminded of the fact that historians do not have a patent on the study of the past. Researchers from all across the sciences and humanities have bent their respective methodologies toward an analysis of what came before, and the fruit of their labors can be seen in the creation of entirely new research areas–for example, "historical epidemiology," "historical climatology," and "historical geography" (just to name a few). My own area of expertise, the history of medicine, is largely a product of transdisciplinary exchanges, and the training I received in this field is of immeasurable value in terms of the work I do here at Knology. Having this broad-based exposure to so many disciplinary currents and subcurrents puts me in a better position to help our partners figure out how to effect the kinds of changes they're envisioning, and to derive novel solutions to the big systemic challenges of the present.

Bennett Attaway [Computer Science]

My background is different from most of my colleagues here at Knology—I was a software engineer, not a researcher, before I joined. Because of this I'm comfortable representing things mathematically (though I recognize the limitations of these models). Working on user-facing software taught me how easy it is for audiences to misinterpret what's being required of them, which shapes how I think about developing surveys and presenting information. Also, this isn't really an insight, but I think working on software involves both looking at the "big picture"—abstraction and developing generalizable algorithms/systems—and attention to detail (or your code won't run!). That's important to our work at Knology as well.

Shaun Field [Climate Science]

Climate Change is one of the most pressing issues of our time. Inherently, the general academic and political interest in climate change is selfish, as we've come to recognize the impact a changing climate can have on mankind. My training brought together climate science and social science in a way that put hard scientific data at the forefront of decision making, policy plans, and adaptation and mitigation strategies in order to promote a climate resilient future for mankind. As academics, we can ruminate over these hard scientific facts and high-level policy positions. But it is imperative to work with and for communities, communicating the risks and promoting climate change awareness in a way that is digestible, context specific, and actionable. I bring the training, methods, and ideas with me to Knology that a climate scientist must consider. And frankly, the work we do at Knology is fundamentally the same thing as what an effective climate scientist does. We think at the high level, we talk about the scientific and the statistically significant, and we bring a transdisciplinary methodological rigor to our work—all while supporting our partners with digestible, context specific, and actionable support.

Question 2: What do you see as most valuable from others' training?

Jena Barchas-Lichtenstein [Linguistic Anthropology]

Do I have to pick one? I learn from all of you all the time. "Theoretical promiscuity," to quote Melina, is intensely valuable.

Melina Sherman [Communication]

This is a hard one, because I'm new to the team. But right off the bat, I can say just a few things: First, my colleagues with backgrounds in humans rights, education, and anthropology have already pushed me to consider the performative nature of everyday human behaviors and interactions, a theoretical perspective which I always enjoyed playing around with, but didn't take too seriously until recently. On the other end of the methodological "spectrum," my colleagues who are experts in quantitative analysis have much to teach me as well. I'm so eager to (re-)learn ANOVAS, MANOVAS, ANCOVAS, and all the -ovas! And I want to finally be able to provide an answer to that oh-so-elusive question of "how generalizable is this?" Hopefully, finally, I'll be able to substantially respond to inquiries like this. And I know that it's really through my colleagues, my new friends, that I'll learn to spread my methodological wings and fly.

Rebecca Joy Norlander [Human Science, Human Rights]

There's so much that I appreciate about working with a team! I've benefited from learning about linguistic anthropology from Jena, both for the detailed attention to written texts (including what's not actually written!) and the emphasis on positionality - my own and others involved in the research. From Melina (even though our collaboration is just beginning) I'm already starting to think differently about what we mean by "health" and being "healthy." There are some very interesting intersections to explore! John's training also has a lot to offer. He has helped me think about quantitative approaches to analyzing qualitative data, and just expanding the way I approach data collection and instrument development. John also sees patterns that I often don't and is able to explain what motivates people to act the way they do. Mostly I love that we all are so different - it takes a lot of perspectives to understand social problems, and many approaches to addressing them. Social problems don't fit neatly into any one discipline, so the more we work together and contribute to each other's work the closer we get to advancing feasible solutions.

Johann Chacko [Political Science]

I really don't mean to sound so terribly politically correct, but they're all valuable, because they each offer their own insights into inescapable facets of human behavior. Being around excellent people who have excellent training and experience is only going to make me a better social scientist. So value isn't as useful a framing device to me as exposure. Psychology is the behavioral discipline that I've had the least theoretical and empirical engagement with. Psychologists simply aren't represented at all in area studies any more. Knology has a very rich store of knowledge and accomplishment in the psychology department, so I'm keen to learn as much as I possibly can. I'm excited for the synergies that are to be found with political science, especially in advancing new areas of research.

John Fraser [Conservation Psychology]

Conservation psychology is an intentionally transdisciplinary pursuit. It starts from the premise that we need to use every tool at our disposal to wean human behavior from the over-consumption of the resources on which all life depends. That means that I show up to work first with my architecture hat on; working in a profession that figures out how to attach something made by one group of people to something else made by another group of people. For good architecture, you need to make the final product work seamlessly. That means we spend most of our time testing the strength of the seams. That means stress testing ideas to see how the whole can work without compromising the intrinsic value of the disciplines that feed the idea.

I love that our team approaches our work by trying to interrogate the question in front of us, by referencing the epistemologies and ontologies of the social sciences. I value that each member of our team represents different schools of thought and a willingness to collaborate. It's the willingness to share and appreciate others that makes a team so strong. It's likely that most of the training that pays off as part of our workforce was learned on parents' knees because kind people share their toys.

John Voiklis [Psychology: Cognitive, Social, Developmental]

To quote Jena quoting Melina, "theoretical promiscuity" seems the wisest approach to doing research (even outside of a transdisciplinary context). Given that I try to bridge the micro and macro levels--interaction between individuals and the resulting/constraining structures--of what is happening in and across Knology's six application areas (Media, Culture, Wellness, Systems, Behaviors, and Biosphere), I seek the guidance of colleagues who work at those levels of analysis. For example, I learn about how individuals self-explain their own behavior (such as news use or health decisions) from colleagues who take a more ethnographic approach. On the other end of the scale, my more big-picture colleagues help me see the

Elliott Bowen [History]

History has famously been called "the queen of the social sciences," and part of the reason for this label (whether deserved or not) has to do with the fact many of the theories and methodologies historians work with in their research actually come from other fields. In order to produce good scholarship, historians have to be conversant with bodies of literature in lots of different areas. Because historical research methods in and of themselves often aren't sufficient to answer the questions we're posing! I think this is probably the most valuable thing I've learned from others' training—just the idea that no one field or discipline holds the key to problem-solving. The more of these that are thrown into the mix, the better!

Knology really gets that. One of the greatest things about Knology is the fact that our writers and researchers approach their work from a variety of different disciplinary perspectives. Just look at the myriad scholarly backgrounds we hail from! Anthropology, communications, conservation biology, human rights, psychology, political science, and so many more. Some of us were trained in quantitative methods, others in qualitative methods, and some in both! And here at Knology, it's important to point out that we work on topics, instead of within specific fields. We've created a truly transdisciplinary team, and that is incredibly valuable—both because it ensures that everyone is constantly getting exposed to new methodologies and research practices, and also because it increases our capacity to come up with novel approaches and solutions to the problems we're tackling. Trandisciplinarity maximizes our flexibility, the robustness of our data collection and analysis efforts, and our ability to deliver on Knology's mission.

Bennett Attaway [Computer Science]

I've learned so much from everyone! I've gained an appreciation of the richness of qualitative data, and a much fuller understanding of how people feel, think, and behave (or at least the various theories).

Shaun Field [Climate Science]

There is no one-size-fits-all solution or method to any of the work we do at Knology. Each of the researchers looks at a problem, a project, or a question through the lens and provides their insights when called upon. The value that I see is less at the academic level, but more at the implementation level. We collectively can come together to build upon each other's ideas, to push each other to think differently or in new ways, and to create an approach that helps us reach our intended goals. Each researcher has provided me personally with new insights, all of which are of extreme value to me.

Photo by Denise Johnson on Unsplash