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Professor, Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Colorado State University, USA

The secret to a successful interdisciplinary collaboration? The secret is simple: good communication and mutual respect. I believe almost all areas of science can benefit from interdisciplinary collaboration. Plus, collaborative science is way more fun!

Fostering interdisciplinary working… One of the challenges, especially in academia, is that the existing structures for evaluating performance do not always value collaborative science. Changing this framework could go a long way to encouraging and enabling collaborative science.

Biggest challenge facing the field? The mass spectrometry-based metabolomics field is facing a significant challenge in standardizing data acquisition and analysis – specifically in nontargeted workflows. This current lack of standardization limits the comparability of data across experiments and the reuse of data.

Book for scientists? Not a book – but all scientists should watch the documentary “Picture a Scientist,” which acknowledges the barriers that have inhibited full participation in science by the larger community. It also puts an emphasis on recognizing and celebrating those that have paved the way for positive change.