Here, we describe the creation of a new program, Public and Applied Liberal Arts, at a regional public university in the Midwest. We discuss the values of transdisciplinary research and teaching for the public good, and how we put together a willing group of faculty from across the university to create a new kind of academic program that moves the humanities into our communities and beyond.

This article challenges the OECD’s dominant downstream-centric framework on plastic pollution by drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in India, Indonesia and the Philippines. While OECD policies emphasize mismanaged waste and littering in low- and middle-income countries as primary causes of plastic leakage, the authors argue this perspective obscures the structural role of upstream plastic production, driven largely by petrochemical interests in the Global North. Through field data, the article reveals how “leaky” infrastructures – such as incineration plants in India, public–private waste partnerships in Indonesia and grassroots upcycling in the Philippines – fail to contain plastic waste, often exacerbating pollution and exposing communities to toxic emissions and microplastics. The study introduces a conceptual framework of “material and structural leakiness,” emphasizing how plastics and the infrastructures designed to manage them are inherently porous. It critiques the notion of shared responsibility, highlighting how it disproportionately burdens marginalized communities. The authors call for a paradigm shift away from recycling and clean-up as core solutions, advocating instead for upstream interventions like production caps and chemical regulation. The article underscores that without legally binding global commitments to reduce virgin plastic production, the toxic burden of plastic pollution will continue to fall on the most vulnerable populations.

Forcibly displaced persons (FDPs) exposed to torture and trauma require multidisciplinary therapies to address their complex needs in mental and physical health. In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we explored the efficacy of models of care that integrated psychological and physical interventions for PTSD outcomes. We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsychINFO, and Web of Science databases. We performed the meta-analysis on studies with randomized controlled trials and non-randomized controlled trial designs, followed by a subgroup analysis of moderators. In all meta-analyses, a random-effects model was used with standardized mean differences to accommodate for the heterogeneity of studies and outcome measures. In a meta-analysis of a between-group analysis of 11 studies comprising 610 participants, integrated intervention showed a moderate effect size (Hedges’ g = −0.46 (95% CI −0.80 to −0.12) in reducing PTSD symptoms. The proportion of variation in observed effects reflects 82% of variation in true effects (I2 = 82%). The efficacy of transdisciplinary interventions was higher compared to multidisciplinary models. Moderator analysis found that the type of PTSD measure, format of intervention, and type of personnel providing the intervention were significant predictors of efficacy. Integrated interventions are efficacious in reducing PTSD outcomes for people with FDPs and those exposed to war trauma. Factors such as the type of integration of interventions and service delivery need to be further studied with high-quality designs and larger numbers in future studies.

This article explores the extent students’ environmental values are informed through a socioecological learning framework when a deep-time universe hi/story is integrated with environmental education and local cultural origins in the primary school curriculum. The research concept grew from teacher observations that students addressed sustainability from a fragmented action approach, rather than incorporating a lifelong learning and wider worldview of past, present and possible future environmental changes. The research was conducted with 8–9-year-old students during a 17-week transdisciplinary pedagogical intervention, adapted for primary-aged students, from an educational evidence-based, online Big History Project, empowering young learners to engage in transformative thinking and to add their voices as co-researchers. Additional data was collected from the same co-researcher and student cohort two years later. The research findings over the two years remain significant, where students continued to discuss the environment and sustainability in the context of a child-framed deep learning pedagogy framework of the changing 13.8-billion-year universe story. If this original research is to remain significant, further research and programming need to be undertaken with students and educators, to ensure that the value of deep-time hi/story is embedded at all levels of the education continuum, including primary-aged students.

The 5th International Polar Year (IPY-5) in 2032–2033 represents an important next step in the legacy of the oldest continuous climate research program created by humanity, which intentionally began during a Solar Maximum with IPY-1 in 1882–1883, following the Little Ice Age. Current IPY-5 planning by the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) and Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) is “From IPY-4 to IPY-5” with scope since 2007–2008, considering relevant large-scale polar process, international activities and UN decades. Additionally, there are essential features to incorporate into IPY-5 planning with Indigenous knowledge as well as next-generation leadership along with international science connections across the United Nations, involving core integration of data system and Earth–Sun system research, which accelerated with the International Geophysical Year (IGY) in 1957–1958 that was renamed from IPY-3. As memorialized in the 1959 Antarctic Treaty: “the International Geophysical Year accords with the interests of science and the progress of all mankind.” Importantly, at the height of the Cold War with “forever” legacy, the 1959 Antarctic Treaty became the first nuclear arms agreement, applying science diplomacy among allies and adversaries alike based on “matters of common interest.” Recognizing current challenges to enable inclusive dialogues – especially in the Arctic – planning for IPY-5 is far enough into the future to be imaginative and hopeful but close enough to be practical, especially to produce synergistic outcomes that inspire and empower next-generation leaders across the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development from 2024 to 2033. Planning “From IPY-3 to IPY-5” – this invited Cambridge Prisms Perspective extends and amplifies the IASC-SCAR concept with its visionary principles – “striving for holistic, systemic, transdisciplinary research approaches” – for the benefit of all on Earth across generations.

We review shoreline monitoring methodologies used by members of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) Archaeology, Geology, and Wildlife Biology teams from February 2021 to December 2022 on Pockoy Island in Charleston County, South Carolina, USA. Our project objectives were to better understand the driving forces behind the landward movement of the shoreline (transgression), to apply new understanding to the rate of shoreline erosion of the island that directly impacts the Pockoy Island Shell Ring Complex (38CH2533), and to establish best practice for future community science monitoring efforts. Each member of our team used a different shoreline monitoring methodology (a nested methodology approach). Multiple unoccupied aerial vehicle (UAV)-derived orthoimagery datasets, on-the-ground transect measurements, and Arrow Gold real-time kinematic (RTK) unit measurements have been collected monthly following significant storms or king (perigean) tide events. Moving forward, the erosion transect approach tested within this project will serve as the foundation for community science monitoring at heritage at-risk sites in South Carolina. In this article, we introduce initial efforts in establishing a community science monitoring program in South Carolina that will influence future research, land management, and policy, and we propose how our research might be adapted for other sites at risk.

In this article, we celebrate Dante Cicchetti’s extensive contributions to the discipline of developmental psychopathology. In his seminal article, he articulated why developmental psychopathology was imperative to create research portfolios that could inform the causes, consequences, and trajectories for adults often initiated by early lived experiences (Cicchetti, 1984). In this three-part article, we share our transdisciplinary efforts to use developmental psychopathology as a foundational theory from which to develop, implement, and evaluate interventions for populations who experienced early adversity or who were at risk for child abuse and neglect. After describing interventions conducted at Mt. Hope Family Center that spanned over three decades, we highlight the criticality of disseminating results and address policy implications of this work. We conclude by discussing future directions to facilitate work in developmental psychopathology. Currently, one of three national National Institute of Child Health and Human Development-funded child abuse and neglect centers, we look forward to continuing to build upon Dante’s efforts to disseminate this important work to improve society for our children, our nation’s often most vulnerable and forgotten citizens.

The United States National Science and Technology Council has made a call for improving STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education at the convergence of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The National Science Foundation (NSF) views convergence as the merging of ideas, approaches, and technologies from widely diverse fields of knowledge to stimulate innovation and discovery. Teaching convergency requires moving to the transdisciplinary level of integration where there is deep integration of skills, disciplines, and knowledge to solve a challenging real-world problem. Here we present a summary on convergence and transdisciplinary teaching. We then provide examples of convergence and transdisciplinary teaching in plant biology, and conclude by discussing limitations to contemporary conceptions of convergency and transdisciplinary STEM.

Major advances in biology and ecology have sharpened our understanding of what the goals of biodiversity conservation might be, but less progress has been made on how to achieve conservation in the complex, multi-sectoral world of human affairs. The failure to deliver conservation outcomes is especially severe in the rapidly changing landscapes of tropical low-income countries. We describe five techniques we have used to complement and strengthen long-term attempts to achieve conservation outcomes in the landscapes and seascapes of such regions; these are complex social-ecological systems shaped by interactions between biological, ecological and physical features mediated by the actions of people. Conservation outcomes occur as a result of human decisions and the governance arrangements that guide change. However, much conservation science in these countries is not rooted in a deep understanding of how these social-ecological systems work and what really determines the behaviour of the people whose decisions shape the future of landscapes. We describe five scientific practices that we have found to be effective in building relationships with actors in landscapes and influencing their behaviour in ways that reconcile conservation and development. We have used open-ended inductive enquiry, theories of change, simulation models, network analysis and multi-criteria analysis. These techniques are all widely known and well tested, but seldom figure in externally funded conservation projects. We have used these techniques to complement and strengthen existing interventions of international conservation agencies. These five techniques have proven effective in achieving deeper understanding of context, engagement with all stakeholders, negotiation of shared goals and continuous learning and adaptation.

The Mount Sinai Health Hackathon is designed to provide a novel forum to foster experiential team science training. Utilizing a Social Network Analysis survey, we studied the impact of the Mount Sinai Health Hackathon on the nature of collaborative relationships of hackathon participants. After the event, the number of links between participants from different disciplines increased and network density overall increased, suggesting a more interconnected network with greater interdisciplinary communication. This social network approach may be a useful addition to the evaluation strategies for team science education initiatives.