What Is "Accepted Scientific Practice"?

The following report was sent to me by Hal Caswell:

As most everyone knows, in 2009 a number of email messages among climate researchers were stolen from the University of East Anglia. One of the researchers was Dr. Michael Mann at Penn State University. Mann was accused of various kinds of academic misconduct; Penn State carried out an investigation and found no evidence to support the allegations. However, they generated another investigation aimed not at academic misconduct (faking data, etc.), but rather at the more difficult issue of whether Dr. Mann followed "accepted scientific practices" in his conduct. This is more difficult because it involves figuring out what "accepted scientific practices" actually are.

The report of that investigation has recently been released. There is an outstanding 3-part discussion of the report on the blog Adventures in Ethics and Science, with lots of links to the official reports and to other sources for this important investigation. As part of their task, the investigators interviewed several scientists to get their opinions about accepted practice; one of those was WHOI's own Bill Curry.

Here are the links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Joint Program Summer Picnic

The Annual Joint Program Summer Picnic took place on Saturday, July 10 on the Quissett ball field. This year’s picnic was organized by JP student representatives Claire Pontbriand (G&G) and Maya Yamato (Biology). Maya reports that the event was a smashing success:

This year’s picnic was nothing like the ones that the Joint Program has ever seen before. In an effort to raise awareness about WHOI on the MIT campus, meet new people, and show off our beautiful campus to non-JP MIT students, we chartered 2 buses to provide round-trip transportation from MIT to the Quissett ball field. We got a tremendous response, with the 106 event tickets selling out two weeks in advance and more MIT graduate students emailing us constantly asking us if they could come crash the event. (Unfortunately, we had to turn them down). 

Despite the ominous weather forecast, it turned out to be a beautiful, sunny day. We fired up the grills, had lunch, and had a MIT vs. Joint Program kickball match. This was followed by soccer, Frisbee, basketball, and a trip to the beach across the street. The MIT students were excited to see our other campus, get to know more about the Joint Program, and, needless to say, incredibly jealous. The picnic was a huge success and we definitely accomplished our mission to increase awareness about our great institution. The next time we meet fellow graduate students at MIT, they might not need an explanation about WHOI or the Joint Program! 

Participants included Joint Program students and MIT students from the following groups: EECS, MechE, EAPS, Biology, Biological Engineering, MIT-SRP, MTL-summership, Physics, PAOC, Aero/Astro, Technology and Policy, Nuclear Science and Engineering, and CSAIL. Funding was generously provided by the MIT Student Activities Office, MIT Graduate Student Council Funding Board, the MIT Biology Department, the MIT Graduate Association of Mechanical Engineers, the MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Graduate Students Association, the MIT Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science Graduate Student Advisory Council, and the WHOI Academic Programs Office.

Q & A with Prof. Paola Rizzoli

Photo by Ed Quinn.

At the last WHOI Commencement, MIT Prof. Paola Rizzoli was thanked for her many contributions to the Joint Program.  In recognition of her service, Jim Yoder announced the creation of the Paola Rizzoli Fellowship to be awarded each year to an incoming first year Joint Program student with preference given to a student who identifies initial co-advisers at both MIT and WHOI.

Given the ongoing discussion about how to strengthen the Joint Program, I thought it would be useful to find out a little about Paola's history of involvement, and to get her opinions about how the program might be improved.  To that end, she graciously agreed to answer a few questions via e-mail:

You have just stepped down from your position as the Director of the Joint Program at MIT after 12 years of service. How did you first become involved with the Joint Program, and how has your involvement changed over the years?

When I came to MIT in 1981, all the students in oceanography were enrolled in the Joint Program, the only way for a student to get an education and degree in oceanography (all disciplines) was to apply to the Joint Program, even though technically the two Institutions, MIT and WHOI, could issue separate degrees. It was therefore natural for any new professor in oceanography to become actively involved in the Program for getting students and teaching.

Also, a fundamental motivation was the interaction with the WHOI colleagues fostered by common research interests which very often led to co-advising a student. I became immediately involved both in advising and teaching and over the years I have taught all the core courses in PO, more than once, plus other courses I designed myself on topics related to my research.

In the 90's a parallel program was created at MIT, PAOC (Program in Amosphere, Oceans and Climate ) which can give an MIT-only degree in Oceanography. PAOC at first was competitive with the JP and created considerable friction between the two Institutions (see Review Committee report of 1998). Over the years, however, the coexistence of the two Programs smoothed out; presently the JP students in Physical and Chemical Oceanography are automatically part of PAOC and basically all the PO and CO students are enrolled in the JP.

Over the years my involvement extended to the programmatic aspects of the program. I became a member of JCPO in the early 90's, and was its chair in the period 1995-1997. At that time, we restructured the PO curriculum and general exam. And finally in 1997 I became MIT Director of the entire Program. So you could say that I have spent my entire professional life at MIT (30 years in 2011....) in the Program.

How has the Joint Program changed since you first became involved?

The organizational structure is basically the same, centered around five Committees, one for each oceanographic sub-discipline. At MIT, the line "of command" changed over the years. In 1997 I was reporting to David Litster, I do not even remember which was his exact position, and he was completely indifferent to the Program. Then, when the position of the Chancellor was created, I reported to him, and Larry Bacow was the first high level governance official at MIT to pay serious attention to the Program. Then the Provost Bob Brown became very strong supporter of the JP (in 2004, at the time of the second review, Bob described the program as "a jewel in the crown of graduate studies at MIT"). Under Bob my "boss" became the Associate Provost for Research and Education, and the present one, Claude Canizares, is also a great supporter of the Program.

This has been really a great change at MIT over 12 years. From the point of view of research and interests of the faculty of the two Institutions, there was unfortunately a drift apart between the two which has been recognized and is presently being addressed.

Indeed a recent review of the the Joint Program advised that we need to reinvigorate the connection between MIT and WHOI. Why do you think the connection has withered? What one thing might we do to help revitalize it?

There are a variety of reasons why the connection between MIT and WHOI withered and they are mostly discipline-related. For example, in geophysics, at MIT we lost a number of key faculty members, such as Sean Solomon and Marcha McNutt, who had been deeply involved in the JP. They were not replaced until the recent, vigorous hiring by Maria Zuber of new young faculty in all disciplines. Thus the ties in geophysics suffered greatly by these losses. Hopefully the new geophysics MIT faculty will establish vigorous ties with the WHOI faculty.

In PO and CO the reason was due to the drift apart of the research interests of the two faculties, especially in PO (see the creation of PAOC). At MIT we evolved very strongly to climate research, which is by nature multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary. WHOI was rather resistant to such an evolution until recently. WHOI recognized the importance of such a change from more traditional oceanography by hiring as Director Susan Avery, an atmospheric and climate scientist. As Susan recalled at the June 5 commencement at WHOI, we had lunch together in Summer 2008 just a few months after she took over, and we talked about restructuring the Program towards climate oriented research. And recently WHOI has been looking for new hires in climate. The restructuring of the JP is occurring now in response to the last review report.

Another issue highlighted in the external review is the perception that students face too many hurdles if they want to undertake interdisciplinary studies in the Joint Program. Do you think that perception is correct? If so, do you think we can (or should) do something to facilitate interdisciplinary studies?

That perception was correct until recently, but the situation is changing. I will give you the PO example. Even though on paper there were three or four interdisciplinary curricula available to the students, the general exam in PO was, and is, still structured around GFD questions, even though we adjust them in the case of a student working at interdisciplinary research. The PO faculty has amply recognized this rigidity and a committee has been created and is presently working at restructuring the PO curriculum and general exam to reflect the importance of interdisciplinary studies.

The need of restructuring the entire JP, as recommended by the review committee, has been addressed through the creation by Susan Avery and Ed Boyle, of a Committee comprising MIT/WHOI faculty in all the disciplines. This restructuring process will also hopefully address the need of reinvigorating the ties between the two Institutions by creating new venues of interactions at the research and teaching/advising levels.

Is there anything you would like to say current students?

You are in one of the two top educational programs in oceanography in the world, and the only one which joins together a top sea-going institution and the top school in science and technology in the world. Take full advantage of the wide-ranging opportunities that each Institution offers; don't be shy in your ambitions. Reach out to the joint faculty: they are there to work with you and will only be delighted to help you in your research and to achieve your career goals.