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Research

Research

Research

Summary

The project will provide rigorous interdisciplinary training and research for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in history and philosophy of the life sciences, with a focus on developmental biology. The program will involve graduate students at Arizona State University (ASU) as well as visiting students from other universities. Participants will receive training in interdisciplinary scholarly research in history and philosophy of science; in addition, they will receive training on digital curating and database managing.

The research theme for this training and research project is provided by the Embryo Project, an ongoing project in history and philosophy of developmental biology at ASU's Center for Biology and Society. The Embryo Project explores historical, philosophical, bioethical, legal, and social aspects of developmental biology and its relations to society, all with a solid grounding in developmental biology and its historical development. It pursues these goals through a set of focused projects directed by individual faculty members at the Center for Biology and Society.

The Intellectual Merits of this IBS supported training and research project lie with research focused on projects within the history and philosophy of developmental biology. Each member of the training group will play a defined role building upon and beyond existing strengths. Each student will develop a focused research project related to individual career directions, and based on that will write a set of related articles to be submitted for review, editing, and publication in the Embryo Project Encyclopedia.

The project's Broader Impacts include the participants learning to communicate research results effectively to multiple user groups, and helping to develop contributions targeted toward K-12 teachers and the broader public, and will take advantage of ASU's outreach activities "Ask a Biologist" and "Chain Reaction." The team-based approach makes it possible for each student to excel in a targeted area while also participating in all other aspects of the project, including outreach.

Funding

National Science Foundation Division of Social and Economic Sciences. This STS training and research project is supported by the Impacts of Biology on Society (IBS) initiative, which is jointly funded by NSF's BIO and SBE directorates.

Timeline

August 2010 — July 2014