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Lessons Learned from Teams Using Transdisciplinary Approaches

  • Special Event

What do effective transdisciplinary approaches look like in practice? What kinds of systems, tools, and aspects of team culture contribute to successful transdisciplinary efforts? In this webinar, Hailey Wilmer (ARS), Greta Landis (University of Wisconsin-Madison), and their collaborators will dig deeper into how teams have implemented transdisciplinary approaches. Specifically, Hailey and co-authors will summarize methodological lessons from three recent collaborative rangeland projects addressing adaptive management, biodiversity-livelihood intersections, and climate resilience. Greta Landis (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and colleagues will share strategies for transdisciplinary project management, leadership, and evaluation using lessons-learned from current projects in NIFA’s Sustainable Agriculture Systems (SAS) program.

 

This event is part of the Transdisciplinary Approaches webinar series.

Date
March 13, 2024 2:00PM - 3:30PM

All events listed in Eastern Time (US and Canada).

Location
Online

If you need an accommodation to attend, please contact us five business days in advance.

Speakers

Greta Landis

Greta Landis is an Evaluation & Research Specialist who has worked in agroecosystems for over 15 years as a researcher, student, and farmhand. Her graduate research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison evaluated beef cattle grazing for habitat management on Wisconsin public grasslands and the decision-making processes in successful conservation partnerships. At the Natural Resources Institute, she and her colleagues provide evaluation services for local and national programs in environmental education, farmer training, conservation monitoring, land management, and transdisciplinary agricultural research. Greta can be reached at greta.landis@wisc.edu.

Hailey Wilmer

Hailey Wilmer is a Research Rangeland Management Specialist at the USDA-ARS Range Sheep Production Efficiency Research Unit in Dubois, Idaho. Originally from southwest, Montana, Hailey is a former high school agriculture teacher and completed her MS and PhD in rangeland ecosystem science at Colorado State University. Prior to joining the US Sheep Experiment Station staff in 2021, Hailey worked at the USDA-ARS in Fort Collins and as a social scientist with the US Forest Service in Juneau.  Her current research questions include: What are the long-term effects of grazing, climate, and other disturbances on high elevation rangeland plant communities? How can researchers and managers work together to conduct useful and useable science? How do ranchers and managers make sense of the complex systems they manage? Can mainstream science integrate local knowledge to support ranching livelihoods, biodiversity, and food production? Hailey can be reached at: Hailey.Wilmer@usda.gov

About the Transdisciplinary Approaches Webinar Series

Presented by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the National Agricultural Library

Join us for a new webinar series highlighting opportunities and challenges of transdisciplinary approaches within agricultural research. Many of the problems facing agriculture are multifaceted, and traditional disciplinary boundaries may limit our ability to address them. Additionally, agricultural research has broad implications, affecting economics, social dynamics, and the environment. Transdisciplinary approaches is a critical tool for tackling agronomic issues. It can address complex challenges that single-disciplinary approaches are not able to solve, increase the likelihood of new practice adoption, and avoid potential unintended consequences of more narrowly investigated findings.

The increased need for large-scale solutions to complex agricultural problems has led to new, large-scale funding opportunities that require applicants to develop transdisciplinary research proposals that tackle program priorities in new ways. However, because of the novel nature of transdisciplinary approaches and challenges associated with transdisciplinary research, adoption of these practices and teams is limited.

This webinar series is targeted at researchers to better understand strategies for implementing transdisciplinary approaches, team building, and overcoming challenges, and university administrators to better support novel transdisciplinary teams and their research.