It's the kind of scientific question tailor-made for interdisciplinary research. How does Q-fever, a highly contagious and still largely untracked disease, move among people, livestock, and wild animals, and what are the long-term effects of its presence on human health and economic systems? Answers may be closer to emerging because of M-Cubed, a new University of Michigan program that is awarding nearly 200 grants to jump start interdisciplinary work. The two-year, $15 million effort encourages faculty to explore major issues facing the planet, from climate change and poverty to health and energy.
TRANSFORMING ETHNOGRAPHIC KNOWLEDGE
University of Wisconsin Press (2012)
Eleven more faculty at the School of Natural Resources and Environment have become part of winning MCubed projects funding by the university under a new interdisciplinary program.
Jackie Turner, a U-M undergraduate with a double major in the Program in the Environment (PitE) and Screen Arts and Cultures, found that her interests in environment, sustainability, developing nations and documentary filmmaking converged when she traveled to Mpala, a 48,000-acre wildlife conservancy and biodiversity research center in Kenya, as part of a class taught by SNRE professors Rebecca Hardin and Johannes Foufopoulos.