"We can't yet envision the research programs of the next generation of scientists. They'll learn to ask the kinds of questions and think in ways that we haven't been trained to do. This program really puts us on the cutting edge of what graduate education should look like," said Fiese, the director of the U of I's Family Resiliency Center and holder of the Pampered Chef Ltd. Endowed Chair in Family Resiliency.
Fiese said that her generation of scientists has had to bootstrap themselves to become good transdisciplinary collaborators. Because I-TOPP will have a strong evaluation component, the scientists will now learn whether this kind of collaboration is something that students can be taught to do.
"At the end of the students' graduate program, we will be assessing these students, comparing them to students who have received just the MPH and Ph.D. degrees to see how successful we've been in helping our I-TOPP scholars to achieve this broader, more transdisciplinary view," Donovan said.
The scientists also want to learn how this problem-focused scholarship has affected the students' critical thinking, investigation, and writing skills, and where these students will go in terms of their profession and career.
"We anticipate that they're going to have a very different career trajectory than students who go through traditional MPH or Ph.D. programs," Fiese said.
Donovan believes that I-TOPP students will be uniquely positioned to take leadership roles in academic, medical, non-profit, and governmental institutions.
The program will be administered in the U of I's Division of Nutritional Sciences (DNS), a pioneer in modeling transdisciplinary education at the university.
Director of DNS and I-TOPP co-director Rodney Johnson is excited to be a part of this new program. "For more than 40 years, DNS has facilitated interdisciplinary graduate nutrition-related education and research. This new joint degree program, which aspires to address one of society's great challenges, is consistent with DNS goals. It is what we are about," he said.
The program will have an ongoing seminar series, will develop two new courses, will promote broad cross-disciplinary interactions between U of I faculty and international leaders through its visiting faculty and lecture series, and will host an annual conference that Donovan believes will attract the participation of influential scholars.
And I-TOPP students will receive a generous stipend, tuition assistance, research and travel funds, Donovan said.
The following faculty are I-TOPP co-investigators: Kelly Bost, associate professor of human and community development; Diana Grigsby-Toussaint, assistant professor of kinesiology and community health; Craig Gundersen, associate professor of agricultural and consumer economics and head of the National Soybean Research Laboratory; Kristen Harrison, associate professor of communication; Charles Hillman, associate professor of kinesiology and community health; Juhee Kim, assistant professor of kinesiology and community health; Soo-Yeun Lee, associate professor of food science and human nutrition; Janet Liechty, associate professor of social work; Brent McBride, professor of human and community development and director of the university's Child Development Laboratory; Margarita Teran-Garcia, MD, and assistant professor of food science and human nutrition; and Angela Wiley, associate professor of human and community development.
The grant was awarded through the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
