New measure captures how scientists' identities shift across academic disciplines
Does the academic discipline of a scientist's doctorate accurately capture their disciplinary affiliation decades later? Consider a scientist who earned a doctorate in physics 25 years ago who now studies climate change, publishes primarily in interdisciplinary journals and considers herself a climate scientist. Does "physics" still accurately describe where she fits in science?
A new study conducted by researchers at Rice University and Michigan State University reveals that a scientist's disciplinary affiliation may not accurately reflect their professional identity decades after earning a doctoral degree. The study, published in PLOS One, introduces a new Disciplinarity Scale that measures the extent to which scientists remain closely connected to their original field or expand their scope over time.
The scale considers five dimensions: department affiliation, primary professional association, publishing outlets, peer perception, and self-identification. The research, which surveyed 4,113 tenure-system science faculty at 83 U.S. research universities, found that scientists' disciplinary affiliations tend to broaden over time, particularly those with experience in cross-disciplinary research.
The findings highlight the need for a more nuanced understanding of scientists' affiliations, especially as interdisciplinary research becomes increasingly prevalent.
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