Rich Gazan has received a grant of $29,849 from the NASA Astrobiology Institute Director鈥檚 Discretionary Fund, to investigate the extent to which publications by astrobiology researchers demonstrate actual and potential interdisciplinarity. 聽The project, entitled Interdisciplinary Research Metrics in Astrobiology (IRMA), will provide summer research funding for two graduate students in 2013 (Co-Investigators Lisa Miller and Mike Gowanlock), to integrate data mining and information clustering techniques with a social science component to assess opportunities for, and barriers to, interdisciplinary research across astrobiology鈥檚 diverse constituent fields.
The NASA Astrobiology Institute Director鈥檚 Discretionary Fund makes one-year awards for research that advances the science of astrobiology, demonstrates impact to NASA鈥檚 space flight programs or its broader science activities, and/or contributes to NASA鈥檚 role as a federal R&D agency. 聽More information about the NASA Astrobiology Institute can be found here: .