December 10th, 2024: Unpacking “convergence culture”: Exploring the operationalization of convergence in teams

Click [HERE - link coming soon] to view the fourth installment of our 2024-2025 series, “Intentional Integration: How do we know if it’s working?” in which Marisa Rinkus, Associate Director of the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative (TDI) Center at Michigan State University, explores “convergence culture” through findings from a pilot study aimed at understanding how NSF Growing Convergence Research (GCR) grant awardees conceptualize and operationalize convergence in their projects. The study was part of the TDI Center’s work with the GCR Program (NSF Award #2119916) conducting structured dialogue-based workshops with newly funded GCR teams.

Thanks to Professor Gabriele Bammer for hosting INTEREACH webinar recordings on the Integration and Implementation Sciences (i2S) YouTube channel, i2S-Talks.

November 12th, 2024: Wicked Problems and Wicked Challenges: Measuring Convergence in Graduate Education

Click HERE to view the third installment of our 2024-2025 series, “Intentional Integration: How do we know if it’s working?” in which Gail Jones, Distinguished Professor of Science Education at North Carolina State University and Senior Fellow at the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, and Daniel Laxman, Principal Program Evaluator at Arizona State University's Office of Evaluation and Educational Effectiveness, explore the challenges of validly and reliably measuring the impact of convergence research on graduate student outcomes and experiences.

Thanks to Professor Gabriele Bammer for hosting INTEREACH webinar recordings on the Integration and Implementation Sciences (i2S) YouTube channel, i2S-Talks.

October 8th, 2024: System Factors that can Supercharge (or Sabotage) Team Science

Click HERE to view the second installment of our 2024-2025 series, “Intentional Integration: How do we know if it’s working?” where Rebecca Woodland, Professor of Educational Policy and Leadership at UMass Amherst, Director of Program Evaluation at the UMass Center for Educational Assessment, and current Vice President of the International Network for the Science of Team Science (INSciTS), describes the five system factors she has identified through her research on organizational integration and team collaboration as the keys to effective collaboration and introduces a comprehensive framework for evaluating team science outcomes and supporting collaboration effectiveness through cycles of inquiry.

Thanks to Professor Gabriele Bammer for hosting INTEREACH webinar recordings on the Integration and Implementation Sciences (i2S) YouTube channel, i2S-Talks.

September 10th, 2024: Convergence Research – What is it? What do we need to know about it?

Click HERE to view the first installment of our 2024-2025 series, “Intentional Integration: How do we know if it’s working?”. Panelists Joy Frechtling, Vice President at Westat, and Lisa Christen Gajary, Consultant at Caspian Strategy & Analytics LLC and Adjunct Faculty at The Ohio State University, discuss findings from their recent exploratory study on the conceptualization and implementation of convergence research, including what they learned from the literature and practitioners about 1) What convergence research is, (2) How it is practiced, 3) What we need to understand it better, and 4) How to define and assess success.

Thanks to Professor Gabriele Bammer for hosting INTEREACH webinar recordings on the Integration and Implementation Sciences (i2S) YouTube channel, i2S-Talks.

June 11th, 2024: A Pathway for Team Science Professionals: The First National Credential in Team Science

Click HERE to view the final installment of our series: “I want to be a professional Arrow when I grow up: Pathways and opportunities for a new workforce,” in which Patrick Kelly, Team Science Research and Program Manager for the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR) at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, wrapped up the 2023-2024 webinar series by introducing the Team Science Professionals (TSP) Digital Badge Initiative, an effort by the newly formed Association for Clinical & Translational Science TSP Special Interest Group to establish the first national credential for Team Science.

Thanks to Professor Gabriele Bammer for hosting INTEREACH webinar recordings on the Integration and Implementation Sciences (i2S) YouTube channel, i2S-Talks.

May 14th, 2024: Professional development and developing the profession for Arrows: Making the Integrator visible

Click HERE to view the eighth installment of our series: “I want to be a professional Arrow when I grow up: Pathways and opportunities for a new workforce,” in which panelists Anne Salmi, Development Manager & Team Lead for the Policies and Practices Unit for Strategy and Science Policy at the University of Oulu in Finland, and Stephanie Briers, Postdoctoral Researcher at ETH Zürich’s TdLab, share their personal Arrow “origin stories” and insights into enablers, challenges, and opportunities related to surfacing the work of integrators and formalizing their roles on cross-disciplinary teams.

March 12th, 2024: The explicit teaching of collaborative competencies

Click HERE to view the seventh installment of our series: “I want to be a professional Arrow when I grow up: Pathways and opportunities for a new workforce,” in which panelists Vicky Klima, Interim Dean of the Honors College and Professor of Mathematical Sciences at Appalachian State University; Katie Plaisance, Associate Professor and Department Chair of Knowledge Integration at the University of Waterloo; and Pips Veazey, Director of the University of Maine Portland Gateway, discuss educational courses and programs designed to develop competencies around collaboration and convergence. Resources shared in the webinar are available HERE.

February 13th, 2024: Convergence Postdocs: Being the Arrows in a Large Science & Technology Center

Click HERE to view the sixth installment of our series: “I want to be a professional Arrow when I grow up: Pathways and opportunities for a new workforce,” in which panelists Kimberly Bourne, Post-doc at Appalachian State University; Alison Deviney and Ashton Merck, Post-docs at North Carolina State University share their experiences navigating personal and professional growth as post-docs in a large NSF-funded convergence center, the Science and Technology for Phosphorous Sustainability Center (STEPS Center). In the first part of the panel discussion INTEREACH founder, Christine Hendren, contextualizes the panelists’ roles in the Center by briefly summarizing its work and origins (for a full description, watch the webinar HERE). Then using their job descriptions as boundary objects, the three panelist discuss and share insights into their roles, their visions for their own future career paths, and how to support the creation and success of future convergence post-docs.

January 9th, 2024: There is no "alt" in arrow work

Click HERE to view the fifth installment of the series “I want to be a professional Arrow when I grow up: Pathways and opportunities for a new workforce," in which panelists Kennan Salinero, principal founder of ReImagine Science; Hannah Love, co-founder of Divergent Science, LLC; and Anne Heberger Marino, Associate Director of the UMaine Portland Gateway and founder of Lean-to Collaborations, explore what “alt-ac” means for professional Arrow careers outside of academia.  The first part of this panel discussion provides a brief overview of how "alt-ac" positions have been framed in various contexts.  Each panelist describes organizations they have created (two businesses and one non-profit), the conditions that gave rise to those organizations, what they do, and how they have changed over time.

December 12th, 2023: Arrows in academia, Part 2: Researching teams and being a science team member

Click HERE to view the fourth installment of the series, “I want to be a professional Arrow when I grow up: Pathways and opportunities for a new workforce,” in which panelists Jeni Cross, Director of the Team Science Core, Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute and Director, Institute for Research in the Social Sciences at Colorado State University; Stephan Fiore, Director of the Cognitive Sciences Laboratory and Pegasus Professor with the University of Central Florida's Cognitive Sciences Program in the Department of Philosophy and School of Modeling, Simulation, and Training; and Holly Hapke, geographer and interdisciplinary social scientist based at the UC Irvine and Director of Research Development for the School of Social Sciences, describe their experiences as traditional tenure-track faculty members pursuing transdisciplinary team-based research.  They discuss some of the common themes experienced in these types of positions, including the promises and perils of joint appointments; dealing with academic branding while having an interdisciplinary degree; interdisciplinary departments or research centers as academic homes; and being transdisciplinary in a discipline-based department.