The Interdisciplinary Research Team (IRT) Fellowship program provides an opportunity to work on a team with fellow peers guided by an SAS faculty advisor on an interdisciplinary research project. Our teams have worked in subjects as varied as Computer Science, Art History, Classics, Psychology, Education, Chemistry and more. We also encourage projects with end goals that are different from a traditional research paper. These can include things like: apps, podcasts, virtual or physical tours, prototypes, virtual or physical exhibitions, educational materials or resources, websites, databases, communications campaigns, outreach proposals, and others.
Why interdisciplinary?
SAS boasts a wide range of departments all of which engage in exciting new research exploring important questions for today’s world. It is in this spirit that we aim to support projects that examine new research questions across these varied disciplines through collaboration and sharing of different methodologies, scholarly literature, historical knowledge, theories, and research practices. IRT brings together students from different disciplines so that they can bring the skills they have learned in their respective fields of study to new questions and learn new modes of questioning and new ways of seeing through their peers’ disciplinary perspectives.
Program Details
As an IRT Fellow:
• Register for 1.5 credits per semester
• Receive a $750 financial award for each semester of research applied to account in support of academic success
• Have the opportunity to develop key skills like collaboration, leadership, time management, and more with a team of peers
• Present research with team at the end of each semester
• Compete three additional assignments: a Project Tracking Template, a Learning Reflection, and a Career Narrative
As a Faculty Advisor:
- Receive $2,500 for individual advising or $2,000 each for co-advising your team’s project.
- Produce an IRT syllabus for your students based off of our shared syllabus model here.
- Commit to regular meetings with your team.
- Attend end of the semester research presentations and help prepare your team for sharing their research.
Funding
IRT is supported by Alan Grossman who received his BS in Computer Science (with Honors) from Livingston College, Rutgers University and went on to complete an MS in Computer Science from Stevens Institute of Technology. He had a distinguished 25-year career in the telecommunications industry, starting at AT&T Bell Laboratories, and then following divestiture he continued his work at Bellcore and Telcordia Technologies. His service to Rutgers includes membership on the Livingston College Dean’s Advisory Council, the President’s Council, the Colonel Henry Rutgers Society, and the Livingston Alumni Association. Since its creation in May 2011, The Alan H. Grossman Annual Scholarship has provided financial assistance to nearly twenty Rutgers students.