2016 AAAS Annual Meeting (February 11-15, 2016)

February 10 - 15, 2016

Team Science and Convergence: Implications for Education

Scientific discovery, from understanding microbiomes to exploring dark matter, increasingly requires integrating multiple fields and moving from solo science toward group efforts. To be successful in these new research environments and workplaces, students will need skills beyond traditional disciplinary knowledge. Curricula and training programs need to foster the ability to work across subject boundaries in teams with individuals from diverse disciplines, cultures, viewpoints, and experiences. Two recent reports from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine explored convergence and team science, related approaches that aim to speed discovery and translation to practice. Convergence is a framework that integrates life, computational, physical, and other sciences within a network of supportive academic-industry partnerships in order to find solutions to scientific and technical challenges. Team science is an increasingly frequent mode for accomplishing innovative research beyond what an individual scientist could do. This session reviews the growth of team science and how diversity impacts team dynamics; discusses the development of curricular models that provide competency in the additional skill sets students are likely to need in environments shaped by team science and convergence; and presents a case example for university-industry partnership to support the STEM workforce of the future.