At the start of the semester (a few days before classes began), the Academic Council’s research section EnPower held an orientation session for the freshmen called Enthuse to spread awareness about the research that is being done in the institute and to encourage students to be part of it and contribute to the research scene during their undergraduate. I was there to present my own work that I had carried out throughout undergraduate. Some Professors were also there to showcase their group’s work. After all the presentations, there was a question and answer session. And there you had it, a student asked if he was allowed to ask for research projects under a Professor who is not from his department and how should he approach for such a purpose. I have seen this question come up repeatedly from juniors. So lets address the issue of interdisciplinary pursuits.

I have been privileged to have had a relatively free environment to think since childhood. I understand that this is not the case with many freshmen who may have been trained to believe in rigid boundaries between subjects and their subfields since a very early age. In fact the education system which forces students to choose science or commerce and then engineering or medicine very early (during high school) is partly at fault here. The American culture of liberal Arts Schools is also almost non-extant, except a few upcoming universities like Ashoka University that I’ve heard of. Pre-med is unheard of in this part of the world, I myself got to know about this from my roommate in LA. This forces us to think of engineering and medical as two separate things. However Bio-engineering has been one of the hottest topics of research recently.

I had a great mentor since high school- Shyam Sir whose highly interdisciplinary interests ranging from philosophy to theoretical physics, mathematics, art and cognitive science and much beyond greatly influenced me. Back then, they seemed all part of the same thing, its just curiosity to explore and answer fundamental questions. The picture I had in mind may be thought of as a newly formed Earth where I can only distinguish between land and water. But now, theres different nations, all have different cities, each of which have their own localities, buildings and apartments. There’s so many physical divisions and boundaries that it takes us years to resolve conflict between two areas whether small as a locality or big as a nation. Same is the case with intellectual world. There have been so many fields and subfields and subsubfields that its difficult to realize the common thread that binds all together. One might believe that there’s no practical way to spend time and go into details of multiple different fields just as one cannot be residing in multiple nations. However there’s many who break the stereotype. One of my major influences: Jared Leto whose acting skills I had admired since a long time had indeed been able to work in a rock band and tour the world. He did this for six years straight without taking any acting role. This streak was broken when he got a call for Dallas Buyers Club which he shot in a few months. One may think that being out of practice and having not acted for six years, his skills would have deteriorated however that movie turned out to be one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year, leading Leto to win his first Oscar for his portrayal of a highly complex transgender character. He has since then kept managing both his acting and music career simultanesously. In academia there’s plenty of examples of researchers crossing the boundaries of their fields. Edward Witten for example, was trained as a Journalist but later turned to physics and picked up the most advanced topics of mathematical physics in a flash to eventually win a Fields Medal for his use of ideas from Physics to solve fundamental mathematical problems, which is the most prestigious award for a mathematician. In his words “In my own work in the years just after 1984, the development that is most worth mentioning here involves topological quantum field theory. This was partly motivated by hints and suggestions by the mathematician Michael Atiyah, who pointed to mathematical developments that he suggested should be better understood using physical insight. Other hints came from developments in physics. Each problem here involved applying physics ideas to a problem that traditionally would have been viewed as a math problem, not a physics problem. These were all problems that I would not have seriously considered working on until String Theory broadened our horizons concerning the relations between mathematics and physics. In each case, the aim of my work was to try to show how a problem that naively is “purely mathematical” could be approached by methods of physicists”- from his Kyoto Commemorative lecture. In recent years there have been considerable number of breakthroughs have happened because people from one field were able to use their sophisticated techniques in a different field.

During undergraduate, many students implicitly or explicitly believe that their major/department/branch decides their fate. For those students facing the dilemma of changing branches also I say the same: There is no choice hence there is no dilemma. There is a good reason for making boundaries and classifying stuff : its for convenience and efficiency. Imagine having to search for a pair of blue socks out of a messy drawer of all kinds of colored and different sized socks, every morning. However we should not overuse such classification. There’s places where we dont need it. There’s times when we dont need it. For data management and reference purposes it’s great to have specialized names for every subsubdiscipline but all the while we should keep in mind that this classification is just for convenience. For instance, its convenient to have an official nationality and identify oneself as a citizen of country X for whatever official purposes that are needed, but also remember that we are all just humans on this planet. Similarly, in research its completely fine to have a particular research field and work on problems specific to that but we should also be aware that fundamentally we are all just trying to push the boundaries of human knowledge by exploring unknown areas and solving open problems. Every human endeavor is an effort to create something that pushes humanity further. Whether that effort requires studying an atom (physics) for a lifetime or molecule (chemistry) for 50 years or a material (materials science) for 10 years how does it matter? The only change is in objects of study and the level at which it is studied: brain (neuroscience), thoughts (philosophy), human mind (psychology), humans (economics and social philosophy), human species (anthropology). I actually don’t see the difference in an actor and a engineer- both just work according to meet expectations subject to conditions which give constraints. So it’s much above me to see the difference between one department and another. This is already in practice with a large number of top universities around the globe, with opening of interdisciplinary centres for people from different research fields to join hands and collaborate and work on multidisciplinary problems that are increasingly growing as we stand at the crossroads of modern civilization. If we follow the trajectories of most independent film actors in Hollywood, this is patent as directors appreciate the approach to the character and technique of acting more than the actual contents of the acting, so an actor who played a nihilistic villain in his first film could very well go on to play a jolly hero in his next film. In fact this variety of roles is encouraged and the versatility of an actor is highly valued. While the technique remains the same, the preparation time required for a specific role and understanding character history may vary from negligible to a few years in the case of acting. Whereas for research these days, it is usually longer with an average of four years of undergraduate preparation before one can plunge into research level problems specific to a field. So one must be prepared that such change in fields may require longer and sustained effort in the case of researchers. However, this can open up new attacks to problems that require such an interdisciplinary approach to solve them. There is a long list of interdisciplinary people apart from those mentioned above who have influenced me, which I will post at the end of this log and keep updating.

Resources

After fighting hard for long, we finally got approval from the senate for establishing the Interdisciplinary Dual Degree (IDDD) program, not to be confused with double major, for bachelor students. Thanks to Anmol (GSAA at the time) and everyone else who strived for it. I also raised substantial points to extend it to dual degree students which I believe has been approved now. The IDDDP allows students to complete their undergraduate in one field and master’s in another provided the requirements imposed by the departments are met. The requirements are typically a bunch of courses at the masters level and Dual Degree Project (Master’s thesis) in the new department. So those who wish to pursue another discipline for their Masters can do so by availing this program. While applications and reasons may vary, an example of a real successful application is as follows:

“To Dean AP through Head Of Dept. and DUGC

My name is Name (Roll No.). I am currently pursuing a Degree Name. I intend to do an interdisciplinary dual degree- that is Masters in Technology (required coursework and my dual degree thesis) in Prospective department (PD).

I have been actively involved in Prospective area through research projects as well as courses since my sophomore year. I was fortunate to have worked under Prof. Name, Prospective Department on research topic. I have also had the pleasure of working in Your Own dept. Research Group/ Lab name. This work was in Old project name where I often hit roadblocks because of the lack of prospective department background. I subsequently took courses in the prospective Department - PD xxx Name of Course by Prof. Name, PD yyy Name of Prof., PD zzz and so on. I was also a TA for PD 101. This semester I intend to take PD aaa, bbb and ccc.

I plan to keep working at the intersection of Old and Prospective for which I would like to have a broader background of Prospective Dept. courses which is why doing some more basic level courses along with the guidance of Professors from Prospective department is imperative for me to make the best out of my remaining last n semesters of stay here.

Within my core curriculum I have also done OD 2xx, OD 3yy and OD 6zz. In addition I have done electives eee. This along with a number of additional materials specific advanced level courses had filled all my slots (I have always been at the upper limit of no. of allowed courses) which is why I was not able to do any other courses in PD till now. Next n semesters, I can take up a total of 6-8 courses as required by the PD.

For my Master’s thesis, I would like to keep working within my current interests for which I would be looking forward to work under the guidance of Prof. New Prof 1 or Prof. New prof 2 along with my current advisor Prof. old prof.

Post graduation I plan to apply for further studies in OD or PD. This application if successful will not only let me explore and learn more but also in making an informed decision for my future career.

Sincerely, Name”

Those who are not able to apply for IDDDP successfully, could still take a similar route by planning extra courses (electives, minor, additional learning, supervised learning, self learning as you wish) in advance and then struggling hard at the time of registrations to get all the required approvals from instructors, heads, Deans. I know its a lot of effort but I’ve done it almost every semester now and trust me, persistently showing up at the Academic section, Dean’s office everyday before/after class will eventually get all formal paperwork done within the first two or three weeks of the semester. As for your thesis, you can always approach a faculty member from another department working in your field of interest and ask him for being a co-supervisor. If you have substantial background and the faculty is confident of your work ethic, there shouldn’t be any major problem. I am very selective with my supervisors because I believe working with suitable people matters more than anything. Hence, I have always taken a course of the professor, got to know them well before and then asked for supervision.

Make use of the Strong Peer Group you have here! In almost all cases, you are likely to find some student or senior working in your area of interest. I follow a rotating Dinner policy in which I go to different hostel’s mess for dinner where I will be able to talk to students from different backgrounds. For example, on days when I had a TA training session in the math dept. last semester, I would often walk to H2 and have dinner with my co-TAs from math department. For days that ended with physics class, I would discuss doubts and concepts with physics students on the way to dinner. Once every week, I would sit with a random student for dinner and get to know about their subject- be it geology, industrial design, philosphy, law or management (Yes, Hostel 18 had the variety of final year students of all majors!). This is also one of the reasons why I wasn’t attracted towards the typical engineering fields like Electrical, Mechanical or Civil as I was prejudiced that the kind of problems I would get to work on would be very restrictive. Thankfully, people have realized the need for interdisciplinary approaches in all fields and have incorporated it to varying degrees. If you want to be around the most diverse group of students, you are bound to find them in Materials Science Engineering, Systems and Control, Engineering Physics and CRNTS. Materials Science Engineering trumps the rest by the sheer number of students (twice or thrice as big as the rest of the departments).

Actions to be taken

Despite repeated attempts, there is still no provision for a double major and a debatable 1st year Cumulative Grade Average based cutoff rule for branch change to all departments at the end of first year (except Mathematics, which accepts change of program to Int. Masters (M.Sc.) in Mathematics provided your interest in the subject and some conditions imposed by the Head of Department on a case to case basis, in addition to Dean’s Approval). These issues can only be addressed by persistent dialogue, meetings with the Deans and data accumulation to support facts. Another big issue is lack of interdisciplinary courses and course content. This again needs seniors, alumni who have seen the world out there to press for updating the curriculums. Departmental Seminars and Summer/Winter Schools are also huge contributors to advancement of the research culture. Especially for undergraduate students to gain exposure to current research. In most of the departments, visitors are constantly invited to give seminars but the undergraduates are not able to tap into it because of lack of background and because the topics are out of their control. This is where student seminars come in to bridge the gap and. I started the Student Seminar in Mathematics with this aim. There’s also student reading groups which graduate students in many departments have started such as Electrical Reading Group, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Reading Group, Controls and Dynamical Systems Reading Group. There’s also CDEEP, NPTEL and GIAN for online resources of the institute. At this point, these are underdeveloped and need to be well established, publicized and used to a much greater extent.

Open Call to Graduating students for sharing data and experiences

There is some stigma among students here associated with moving to another field after undergraduate. The most common reason given is that, “you wasted a seat” or “you wasted your undergraduate training”. I will not make an attempt to explain how pointless those remarks are. Regardless, there have been students every year who go against the tide. For those students who want to do such a thing but are not confident of their future prospects, I decided to collect data and experiences from all the students who are applying to interdisciplinary programs or to a field other than their own so that you can get an unbiased opinion on the same. There’s many students who will be going for ‘non-core’ placements but I will not be documenting them as there are other bodies (PT cell, managers, seniors, Insight) which do a reasonnably good job at that. I request all final year students whom I have not yet contacted and who are doing such interdisciplinary applications to contact me at somphene1@gmail.com. It will be helpful to collate the data by next semester’s graduate applications session for juniors which is typically held in March/April. Here I list some of the concrete examples from similar backgrounds who have taken such a path:

  • Prof. Govind Menon was a Mechanical Engineering undergraduate student at IIT Kharagpur, completed his Masters in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from Cornell University and Ph.D in the Division of Applied Mathematics , from Brown University, where he is currently a Professor.
  • Prof. Vamsi Pingali, started out as an Engineering Physics undergraduate student at IITB, pursued a PhD in Mathematics from Stony Brook and is currently Assistant Professor of Mathematics (Analysis and Probability Group) at IISc.

List of some interdisciplinary researchers who have influenced me

  • Prof. Matilde Marcolli : who calls herself a “A drifter of Dadaist persuasion” (computational linguist, sometime physicist and occasional mathematician).
  • Prof. Rafael Gomez-Bombarelli : who works at the interface between machine learning, materials informatics and quantum chemistry. His insights (coarse graining) from materials simulations have enabled create new computational methods which demonstrates influence of materials science on computer science.
  • Prof. Eric Mazur : Whos group studies study the dynamics of molecules, chemical reactions, and condensed matter on very short timescales. In his own words “Our projects are of both fundamental interest and technological relevance, and cross traditional disciplinary boundaries between physics, chemistry, materials science, and optics”. He is also working on Education research. He developed an easily and widely applicable technique, called Peer Instruction. Recently he is involved in studying gender differences in physics education and the effectiveness of demonstrations.
  • Steven G. Johnson : Who works on “The influence of complex geometries (particularly in the nanoscale) on solutions of partial differential equations, especially for wave phenomena and electromagnetism — analytical theory, numerics, and design of devices and phenomena & High-performance computation, such as fast Fourier transforms, solvers for numerical electromagnetism, and large-scale optimization. He also has close collaborations with various experimental and theoretical groups. He has BS degrees in physics, mathematics, and computer science, which was my primary motivation for pursuing my ambitious academic coursework across four disciplines.
  • Prof. Govind Menon : “I view myself as a problem solver, rather than a specialist in any particular technique. My work spans a wide range and includes pure mathematics (analysis, dynamical systems, partial differential equations), applied mathematics (computational methods, asymptotics, modelling), and active collaboration with experimentalists in the sciences (self-assembly, textiles, soft condensed matter)”.
  • Prof. Maxim Konstevich : as described on IHES page “belongs to a new generation of mathematicians who have been able to integrate in their area of work aspects of quantum theory, opening up radically new perspectives. On the mathematical side, he has drawn on the systematic use of known algebraic structure deformations and on the introduction of new ones that turned out to be relevant in many other areas, with no obvious link”.
  • Prof. Terrence Tao : The staggering amount of different research areas of mathematics that he covers is striking. For reference, look at the eight categories in which he classifies his research papers.
  • Prof. Akshay Venkatesh : similar to above, the depth and amount of contributions made by him across areas of mathematics is unfathomable.
  • Prof. Alexei Kitaev : Theoretical Physics, Computer Science, and Mathematics. In his own words “I am a theoretical physicist sometimes drifted away into mathematics”.
  • Prof. Adam Cohen : Who is a Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and of Physics and works on projects ranging from quantum mechanics to pure biology.
  • Prof. Navin Khaneja : Who works at the interface of physics and control. Specifically, spectroscopy and quantum informaion processing, robust control of spin systems, high resolution nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy in solution and solids with an important collaborative experimental component.
  • Prof. John Baez : who is a mathematical physicist working in mathematics and quantum technologies. In his own words “I’m working on network theory, information theory, and the Azimuth Project, which is a way for scientists, engineers and mathematicians to do something about the global ecological crisis”.
  • Prof. Michael Freedman : A Fields Medal-winning mathematician whose accomplishments included a proof of the 4-dimensional Poincare conjecture, the discovery (with Donaldson and Kirby) of exotic smooth structures on Euclidian 4-space, applications of minimal surfaces to topology, and estimates for the stored energy in magnetic fields. He founded Microsoft Station Q and now works on the interface of quantum computation, solid state physics, and quantum topology.

Note that a large fraction of researchers working in inherently interdisciplinary fields like Materials Science, Quantum Computing or Computational Biology have not been highlighted.