GoodWork Paper 13: Interdisciplinary Research and Education: Preliminary Perspectives from the MIT Media Laboratory (PDF)

Author(s): Dan Dillon

Editor(s): Jeff Solomon, Series Editor

Media: PDF

Description: With interdisciplinary work growing dramatically in popularity and a number of interdisciplinary endeavors reaching maturity, the time is right to begin a study on the merits and weaknesses of interdisciplinary approaches to research and education. The Interdisciplinary project seeks to identify the components consistently present in quality interdisciplinary efforts, so that more informed decisions about educational and research practices can be made. It is a large-scale study of several of the nation‘s leading interdisciplinary institutions. This paper describes an investigation of one such institution: the MIT Media Lab. Over the course of several months, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 Media Lab professors, asking them about their backgrounds, the projects they are currently involved in, and the institution as a whole. This paper summarizes findings from this initial phase of the project. It finds that the Media Lab is a place that has espoused an interdisciplinary approach and achieved singular success. Though there are some weaknesses associated with the lab‘s method of combining disciplines, the results of that method have been twenty years of ground-breaking research, hundreds of students with inquisitive minds and the skills to match, and an international reputation for excellence.