Sept. 18, 2019 – Who do engineering and physics researchers turn to when they have an on-the-job ethical dilemma and why?
CSU Channel Islands (CSUCI) Assistant Professor of Communication Megan Kenny Feister, Ph.D., was recently awarded a $398,510 National Science Foundation Grant to study just that.
Kenny Feister is teaming up with Jeffrey Treem, Ph.D., from the University of Texas at Austin to conduct a three-year study that will investigate the nature of ethics and expertise at national and university laboratories focused in science, technology, engineering, math (STEM) research across the country.
The project titled “Exploring how scientists on multidisciplinary laboratory teams negotiate expertise and claim legitimacy regarding ethical practice” will look at ways to ensure research teams are adhering to ethical practices and standards, how ethics is interwoven into everyday STEM work, how communication interactions create or limit ethical cultures, and the ways ethics is learned and shared through ongoing social relationships and interactions among organizational members.
“Ethics is a type of expertise that gets infused into team work,” said Kenny Feister. “We will examine how the on-going social relationships of individuals and teams in STEM labs affect the decisions and priorities of those individuals and teams.”
As the lead institution, CSUCI receives $211,216 and Kenny Feister will serve as the principle investigator.
The team will also look at what practices contribute to the establishment and maintenance of ethical cultures and how these practices can be transferred, extended to, and integrated into other research and learning settings.
“We ultimately want to provide guidance to help labs create ethical decision-making pathways for their teams,” added Kenny Feister.
“What’s also really exciting is that the grant will fund six to10 undergraduate research assistants from CSUCI’s Communication program,” Kenny Feister said. “So our students will have the opportunity to participate in a hands-on, immersive learning experience.”