Professor, Earth Science
 David Lea studies records of past climate-from centuries to hundreds of thousands of years-that are encoded in marine sediments and in coral reefs. By using this natural "marine archive," Lea studies the link between changing ocean composition and global climate change, in particular through the cycle of carbon dioxide. This research is increasingly important to understanding the effect of human-induced changes of Earth's atmosphere through the production of greenhouse gases.
Graduate students attending UCSB will find that that there are essentially no disciplinary boundaries here. You can find whatever expertise you need to pursue your graduate work, both in and outside your chosen department or program, without having to break down any disciplinary boundaries. One of my most successful doctoral students entered with undergraduate and masters degrees in marine biology from Mexican Universities, was a member of our Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Marine Science, and had his home in the Earth Science Department.
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Professor, Black Studies
 George Lipsitz studies social movements, urban culture, and inequality, and has been active in struggles for fair housing and educational equity.
Disciplinary methods, truth tests, conversations, and concerns continue to be vital and essential parts of scholarly work, but some research objects and research questions can be addressed more effectively through interdisciplinary work. At UCSB we experience the both of both worlds. Our distinguished faculty conducts excellent research and trains researchers inside the disciplines, but we also benefit from the presence of interdisciplinary departments, programs, and collaborative research efforts.
In my thirty years of teaching in different universities all across the nation, I have never seen a better climate for interdisciplinary scholarship than the one we have here at UCSB. Campus structures, rules, and regulations encourage dialogue across and within disciplines. The extraordinary group of original and generative scholars grounded in interdisciplinary frames makes this campus a wonderful place for doing this kind of work. |
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Anthony Barbieri-Low |
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Assistant Professor, History (Ancient China, Chinese Archaeology, and Epigraphy)
.jpg "Cover of \"Artisans in Early Imperial China\" by A. Barbieri-Low") Anthony Barbieri-Low’s research is currently focused on craftsmen in Ancient China, cultural contact and transmission between China and the West, historical interpretations of the Qin Dynasty, and law and society in Early China.
Since coming to UC Santa Barbara, I have enjoyed discussing research with faculty in Anthropology, Classics, Art History, and East Asian Studies whose work all intersects with mine in some way. The research focus groups of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center are a good place to interact with faculty from other disciplines.
My own research has always been highly interdisciplinary. My first book was an exhibition catalog, researched and co-authored by historians, art historians, and archaeologists, and my most recent book, Artisans in Early Imperial China, was a multi-disciplinary approach to writing a social history of artisans using the methodologies of art history, history, and archaeology. It has subsequently received awards or recognition from both the American Historical Association and the College Art Association. I have encouraged all the graduate students I have trained to take courses as broadly as possible, in other related disciplines like Anthropology and Art History.
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Chair of the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology Department, and Co-Director of the UCSB Center for Stem Cell Biology and Engineering
.jpg "Photo of Dennis Clegg courtesy of Convergence Magazine") Dr. Clegg studies neural development and regeneration, with a current emphasis in stem cell research. Dr. Clegg is the recipient of the UCSB Distinguished Teaching Award in the Physical Sciences, and has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. He is a member of the UCSB Neuroscience Research Institute.
The Center for Stem Cell Biology and Engineering is an interdisciplinary center that fosters stem cell research at the interface between engineering and molecular biology. UCSB is well positioned to make unique, significant contributions in stem cell research, with extraordinary enabling technologies in biomaterials, systems biology, nanotechnology, micro-processing and bioengineering, all of which are synergistic with fundamental biomedical research efforts. Our approaches are uniquely distinct from those at California medical schools, with our emphasis on basic biological questions and engineering challenges related to stem cell research.
At UCSB, departmental boundaries are minimal, and there are many interdepartmental graduate programs and research collaborations. For example, many engineers on campus are attracted by the importance and challenge of biological questions and applications, and this has resulted in an emerging program in bioengineering.
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Professor, Communication
 Dr. Stohl is concerned with the relationships among internal and external communication processes as they are manifest in global collaborations. Her most recent work addresses a diversity of network and collective action organizations in the global context including a focus on new communication technologies and terrorist organizations. She is now a co-principal investigator on an NSF grant on Technological Change and Collective Association: Changing Relationships Among Technology, Organizations, Society, and the Citizenry.
When I first arrived at UCSB, I was told about the supportive interdisciplinary culture but I didn’t really understand what it meant. During my first year, I attended several talks sponsored by many of the interdisciplinary centers on campus. Before long, and as a direct result of the informal, informative, and intellectually stimulating interactions that took place during these presentations I was involved in writing an NSF grant with colleagues from my own and other disciplines. The many opportunities to meet, interact, and network with others who have similar interests but are outside your home department truly embodies the interdisciplinary spirit that is UCSB.
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Professor, English and Director, UC Transliteracies Project
Alan Liu researches and teaches the culture of information. His special focus is the relation between the humanities and the ethos of postindustrial "knowledge work" as the latter is assisted and allegorized by information technology.
UCSB has one of the strongest, deepest, and fast-moving cultures of interdisciplinary research and teaching in the nation. UCSB's research environment--in which projects form quickly around multiple humanities and arts departments or around innovative combinations of the humanities and arts with the social sciences, sciences, and engineering--has the feel of a "start up" company.
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Program Chair, Environmental Studies, Professor, Evolution, Ecology and Marine Biology
.jpg "Josh Schimel") Professor Schimel’s research sits at the interface of ecosystem and microbial ecology. He is interested in the role of soil microbes in controlling ecosystem scale processes, particularly the linkages between plant and soil processes, and how changes in microbial community structure affects ecosystem-scale dynamics. His work currently focuses on three ecosystems: the Arctic tundra in Alaska, the taiga forest of Alaska, and the California annual grassland-oak savanna.
The greatest thing about being a scientist at UCSB is that disciplinary boundaries don't really exist. Every single one of my Ph.D. students has had committee members from at least one other department, including Geography, the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, and others. At the same time, I have worked with students in the Bren School, the Geography Department, and even Anthropology. Even within Ecology and Evolution, my students in soil ecology are likely to have committee members who are marine scientists, interested in analogous processes but in a very different environment.
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Professor, Linguistics
 Mary Bucholtz’s research interests include sociocultural linguistics; language and identity; linguistic representation; language, gender, and sexuality; African American English; American Spanish; language in California.
If your research and teaching goals don't fit the traditional disciplinary mold, UCSB is the place to pursue them. UCSB truly fosters innovative interdisciplinary training, research, and teaching among its graduate students. Linguistics students, for example, regularly interact with faculty and students in at least a dozen other departments on campus through undergraduate teaching, graduate courses, Ph.D. emphases, research focus groups, and collaborative research.
The most valuable research moves scholarly inquiry in new, unexpected directions. Often this means drawing widely on the best ideas and approaches from multiple fields. Early in my career my interdisciplinary orientation was often met with puzzlement, and more than once I was admonished, "That's not linguistics!" But when I got to UCSB, I knew I was finally in the right place. My colleagues in my department and around campus weren't worried about policing disciplinary boundaries; they found my work interesting and even exciting.
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Richard Appelbaum |
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Professor, Sociology, Global and International Studies, Director, M.A. in Global and International Studies
 Richard Appelbaum’s research includes world-system theory; global production and labor; science, technology, and society.
UCSB rightly prides itself on being highly interdisciplinary, fostering collaborations across what is usually the science/social science/humanities divides. Our program in Global and International Studies includes faculty and students from the humanities and social sciences, whose research ranges from the study of religious nationalism to the role of technology in economic development. Our two-year MA program in Global Studies, which prepares students for careers in global civil society organizations, attracts students from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds (and a wide range of countries as well); their interests have ranged from environmental preservation to the use of drugs to eradicate malaria in Tanzania to eliminating child labor in the cotton fields of Uzbekistan.
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Wade Clark Roof |
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Rowny Professor of Religion and Society, Religious Studies, and
Director of the Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion, and Public Life
 Dr. Roof studies American religious trends, the sociology of religion, and ethnography.
UCSB offers a setting where interdisciplinary work is not only talked about but commonly practiced. The university culture encourages an engaging interplay among intellectual disciplines.
In my own field -- the sociology of American religion -- my students and I move easily between the perspectives found within Religious Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, History, Women's Studies, and ethnic studies departments. Research assistants from across departments participate in my research projects on religious pluralism and on the presidential election of 2008 and prospects for progressive religious voices in southern California. Graduate students across departments also take my seminars. This mix of backgrounds and approaches makes for a dynamic, creative study of religion in its social and cultural context. |
Professor, Feminist Studies
 Leila Rupp studies women's movements, sexualities, comparative and transnational women's history.
UC Santa Barbara has a culture of interdisciplinarity, both in terms of strong interdisciplinary units (including, in the Division of Social Sciences, Asian American Studies, Black Studies, Chicana and Chicano Studies, Feminist Studies, and Global Studies) and ease of movement across disciplinary boundaries. My own teaching and research in Feminist Studies is profoundly interdisciplinary. My undergraduate course, “Sex, Love, and Romance” explores the ways people desire, love, and form relationships across time and place from a variety of perspectives. My graduate courses on “Global Feminisms” and “Sexualities” bring together history, sociology, anthropology, and political science. And my current book project, “Sapphistries,” draws from a range of disciplines to explore a global history of love between women, including literary representations that allow us to imagine what we cannot know from documentary sources. Students interested in creative scholarly work that cannot be contained within the bounds of traditional disciplines find UC Santa Barbara a congenial place to learn and work. |
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