Interdisciplinary research team workshop: Bottom-up approach

This workshop aims to help build a multi-disciplinary research team and explore common research goals and topics to foster an interdisciplinary research culture among researchers. The workshop guides the participants to 1) define an aligned goal, 2) outline overlapped approaches, and 3) organize a research team accommodating the skills and capacities of different members. 

The workshop will give the participants an opportunity to 1) initiate research under the aligned research goal with an interdisciplinary and collaborative research team built, 2) deepen academic relationships with workshop team members, and 3) if participants agree, be produced as research outcomes addressing how to foster interdisciplinarity in the field of team science research. 

Building interdisciplinary teams has been emphasized to solve emerging complex societal and scientific issues. According to that, building an interdisciplinarity nature between researchers was receiving attention. Forming a multi-disciplinary team would help to understand the complex issues with various angles and to develop multi-dimensional goals. The bottom-up approach, in which individuals develop a team, not by the leader of an organization, will allow researchers to actively engage in interdisciplinary research/projects by setting an aligned goal together. 

The workshop participants may utilize the workshop materials in their workplace and/or institutions to 1) build interdisciplinary climate and 2) explore multi-dimensional aligned goals. 

The target audience, the potential workshop participants, will be 1) currently in a research-related field and 2) interested in collaborative and interdisciplinary team research/project. In order to be a participant in the workshop, they must be 1) 18 to 64 years old and 2) speak English fluently. 

The workshop will last for 2 hours and 35 minutes. This workshop includes 1) a lecture, 2) interactive discussion, and 3) hands-on exercises. The facilitator of the workshop will provide materials, such as slides, handouts, and sample studies. The workshop will start with a short survey (5 min.) to collect the participants’ backgrounds, including academic and practical experiences. While the workshop organizers form teams according to the short survey responses, there will be an introductory presentation (10 min.) to briefly provide an overview the purpose, process, and expected outcomes of the workshop. Then, the workshop will provide practical guidance to 1) a team discussion (30 min.) to talk about the participants’ educational background, work experience, research interest(s), and previous research collaboration experience and 2) a brainstorming session (1 and ½ hours) to develop aligned research topic ideas. The results of the brainstorming session will be shared at the end of the workshop (20 min.). 

Presenters

Charleston Yi is a Ph.D. student in Design at North Carolina State University. His background is in Architecture and Landscape Architecture with few years of experience in practice. He explores the design education and pedagogy to find an appropriate way to prepare students for fast-shifting societies with "uneasy" professional perspective. His research aims to not only encourage design students to have such a learning attitude but also to apply the educational approach to public engagement in design practice to raise social awareness.

Byungsoo Kim worked as a designer and a researcher for several years. He earned his bachelor's degree in Product Design from Hong-ik University and his master's degree in Industrial Design at North Carolina State University. He is a global design awards winner, such as GM Interactive Design Competition, iF Design Award, Red dot Design award, and other national and international awards. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Design at North Carolina State University and a research assistant at Research in Ergonomics and Design Lab. From 2016, he has been involved in preparing and delivering design thinking short courses and workshops to Laboratory for Analytic Sciences (founded by the National Security Agency) staff and members. He also conducted ergonomics and user experience research. He designed and tested aging experience suit as a lab project and helped developing a simulator and usability test protocol for Hanes brand at the RED lab. His research works were published as a journal paper, received HFES Product Design TG Student Paper Award in 2019, and presented in several international conferences. His research interests are user experience and usability study of products, design thinking process and methods, and interdisciplinarity in design research.

Jinoh Park, Ph.D. is an Interior Architecture Fellow at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His background is in Interior Design and Business Administration with design practice experience of more than 10 years. He has explored the built environment to synthesize economic feasibility and resident satisfaction in the built environment. His research aims to align the often-disjointed concerns regarding the satisfaction of residents' health and wellness with the business concerns of return on investments. The hope is to encourage businesses to concentrate on the satisfaction of residents in their buildings if relationships can be shown.