For Science Graduates: What Are Today's Most Fertile Disciplines?

Experts say opportunity is richest in areas where diverse fields of study intersect and where new tools thrive Given today's dismal economic climate, new science graduates aiming to gain a foothold on a professional career in research can expect to face a tougher challenge than did their counterparts in previous years. For a lot of them, according to working scientists and others interviewed for this article, the problems will be twofold: They must contend, of course, with the limited job pool resulting from the depressed economy; and, ironically, the rapid pace of scientific change that characterizes much of today's scientific activity will make it more difficult for them to identify the most attractive career paths. The pace of innovation, working scientists point out, defies young researchers to discern the areas of their disciplines that will be most active, exciting, financially rewarding, and stable in, say, two or three years. However, while many scientists agree that identifying the "hot" fields--those presenting the most auspicious professional potential--is about as chancy as predicting the weather, they also share the view that a few major trends indicate where the most exciting possibilities are likely to be found. The trends they cite are: rapid advances in techniques and instrumentation in virtually all scientific disciplines over the last two decades; increasing sophistication in computer hardware and software; a tendency for new research areas to spring up at the boundaries between traditional disciplines; and the growth and widening scope of the biotechnology, microelectronics, and telecommunications industries. These tendencies, say observers, are manifesting themselves in all disciplines--and subdis-ciplines--of the life sciences, physical sciences, and even mathematics. In the biological sciences, for example, many important tools have been perfected during the last decade, including technical advances in microscopy, molecular biology techniques, processes for manipulating genetic materials, and methods for growing proteins in the lab by means of bacteria with cloned genes. Such advances are poised to open new eras of achievement in many biological areas, including cell biology and microbiology, scientists say. And in the biotechnology industry, say observers, new tools are inducing companies to expand into new research and product areas, particularly agricultural biotechnology, marine pharmaceuticals and food products, and the bioremediation of wastes. Thanks to new technologies, cell biology has become "one of the most rapidly growing areas of biomedical research," says Robert Goldman, professor and chairman of cell, molecular, and structural biology at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago. "Almost every structure of the cell can be approached at the molecular level of investigation." This advanced technical knowledge has created new understandings of such topics as the cell cycle (how a cell carries out and regulates its division process), which is basic to understanding cancer and other abnormalities of organismal development. Other applications of molecular techniques have deepened scientists' knowledge of cell receptors. These and other developments, Goldman says, have led to an unprecedented demand for cell biologists to work in the pharmaceutical industry. The same molecular and genetic practices have also brought microbiology to the brink of a new era of accomplishment, according to Jean Brenchley, a professor of microbiology at Pennsylvania State University in University Park. "The same tools that have been applied to cell biology can be used to study microorganisms. All it will really take is a couple of gee-whiz successes for the potential [of microbiology] to be realized," Brenchley predicts. As evidence, she points to the pharmaceutical industry's discovery that certain drugs can be manufactured by microorganisms in the laboratory; food companies' interest in specialized enzymes, produced by microorganisms, which could change food-processing procedures; and laboratory evidence that microorganisms can be used for the bioremediation of some waste products. But Brenchley says the best indicator for a coming boom in microbiology in the United States may be the existence of European and Japanese initiatives to examine the potential of microbial metabalites, products of metabolism, such as enzymes. "Strange as it may sound, what Japan is doing is one of the best indicators of what the U.S. will be doing soon," Brenchley says. According to some scientists, even physiology research, largely in eclipse since the molecular biology and gene manipulation boom began in the late 1960s and early 1970s, may soon make a strong comeback--primarily owing to some of the same molecular and genetic advances that have eclipsed it. "We're right now in the midst of a thriving reductionist approach," says Stanley Schultz, a physiology professor at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston, referring to the small-scale molecular and genetic approaches that currently dominate the study of living organisms. "But that's natural. That's the way the mind works. Everybody tries to work for first principles. However, eventually, you need to construct the whole system, look at how it functions together. That's the only way you solve the really hard, age-old questions of how and why. "Physiology has been getting a bad reputation--not because there are no exciting problems for it to solve, but because those problems have been too hard. But physiology is far from dead. We're just now developing the tools to approach those questions." And soon, Schultz and others predict, physiology may resurface at the forefront of biomedical research. "The scientists of the future will be a different type of beast," Schultz says, "aware of the working of cells at a molecular and genetic level and at the same time able to relate this to the higher function." One of the most rapidly growing areas of science today is the study of the brain and of intelligences, both artificial and biological. The host of subdisciplines that have recently sprung up in this area routinely involve interdisciplinary cooperation, molecular biology methods, and the insights of computer scientists and artificial intelligence researchers, says psychologist David Johnson. "Brain science is one of the fastest-moving biological fields. Cognitive science is driving the rest of the subdisciplines in psychology. And both of those disciplines are becoming more steeped in one another," says Johnson, director of the Federation of Behavioral, Psychological and Cognitive Sciences in Washington, D.C. "Meanwhile, the neuron people are linking up with the neural network [artificial intelligence] people, forming new subdisciplines using insights from all the areas." One such field is biorobotics, in which scientists design mechanical systems that mimic the way biological organisms process information. Mathematics For mathematics researchers, such traditional topics as algebraic geometry, number theory, group theory, and topology still have strong funding potential, mathematicians say. But many also agree that participation in interdisciplinary research teams, increased computer use, and more attention to mathematical questions relevant to growth industries like microelectronics may be the new keys to success. "Universities increasingly look to young faculty to help them get hard-to-come-by funding and prestige," says Edward Connors, a mathematics professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. "One way they hope to achieve this is by getting young researchers who get grants. Young mathematicians not among the superstars, and maybe even those who are, should definitely consider getting into interdisciplinary research groups. A young person who can use high-speed computing or mathematical modeling in an area like environmental mathematics will be well placed for funding and will have a good start on a career." For young mathematicians looking for jobs outside academia, interdisciplinary cooperation and computer skills are also important. "There's plenty of potential for mathematicians to contribute creatively to advanced technology," says Donald McClure, a professor of applied mathematics at Brown University. Though defense spending cuts are limiting job openings in aerospace--traditionally one of the largest industrial employers of mathematicians--McClure and others say that electrical engineering firms, companies developing visual image processing systems, computer companies, and pharmaceutical companies doing molecular modeling all have a growing need for employees with mathematical skills. "There's a need for mathe-maticians' analytical skills--and particularly for those who've done research in computational methods," McClure says. He points out, however, that in some cases mathematicians will have to sell companies on their potential, since management groups are usually made up of scientists from other academic backgrounds. High-speed computing and interdisciplinary applications also play a large role in some new mathematical disciplines just emerging on the scene. Among these new fields are large- scale scientific computation (wherein mathematicians develop algorithms for efficiently using computers to approximate answers to otherwise insoluble scientific problems) and analysis of dynamical systems, a topic relevant to such diverse subjects as crystal growth, global climate change, and ecological and economic systems. Physics In physics, some traditional fields such as nuclear physics are generating fewer opportunities than in the past. But other subdisciplines, including several that link physics with other sciences, are coming on strong. In addition, analysts say, the long-predicted retirement of a generation of physics professors should open up tenure-track positions nationwide in this decade. While big-budget physics facilities like the Superconducting Supercollider face uncertain futures because of budget cutting, new techniques and instruments are offering physicists "an embarrassment of riches" in fields with fresh creative potential, says Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics professor Daniel Kleppner. "If I were a young person in particle or nuclear physics thinking about a future tied up with the SSC, I think I'd want to develop some other options," Kleppner says. "But many exciting areas have opened up whose potential we hardly recognized five years ago." Among these current hot topics, Kleppner and others name optics; condensed-matter physics; and mesoscopic physics-- the study of man-made structures so small that quantum effects cause macroscopic behavior changes. Many currently booming physics subfields "are taking place at the interstices between disciplines," says Robert Park, a University of Maryland, College Park physics professor who heads the Washington, D.C., office of the American Physical Society. These include biophysics, which uses physics principles to explain the structure and mechanics of living organisms; applied physics, in which physics principles are used to solve problems in other areas of science (for example, developing medical magnetic imaging devices for use in Third World countries); and the mathematical study of complexity, chaos, and nonlinear dynamics. Perhaps the best news for young physicists in all specialties is the near certainty that many tenure-track academic positions will open up in this decade. "A large group of the current tenured faculty began their jobs in the '60s in the wake of Sputnik," says Susanne Ellis, an education studies analyst at the American Institute of Physics. "We had projected that many would have retired by 1990. But they apparently love their jobs, so they just held on to them. The median age of physics faculty is very high right now. But by the end of this decade, this group will certainly retire, and the current generation of physicists can move into these jobs." Astronomy Improved tools, such as ground-based telescopes, orbiting observatories, and supercomputers, will make the 1990s a decade of discovery in astronomy, scientists say. And though few expect academic jobs for astronomers to increase in the near future, many believe astronomy researchers may be able to put their knowledge of advanced computing to good use in industry. "For the first time, we'll have observing capabilities throughout the spectrum, so we're going to get an unprecedented amount of new and surprising data," says Edward Weiler, a Hubble Space Telescope scientist and chief of the Ultraviolet and Visible Astrophysics Branch at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration headquarters in Washington, D.C. "NASA has the money to support people using the observing systems, money for people to do astronomy. But that's soft money. Whether there will be permanent, tenured university positions for astronomers is another matter." Despite uncertainties in the academic job market, astronomers see the coming decade as an exciting one in all branches of the discipline and predict that a flood of new observational data will bring about "paradigm shifts" in fields such as cosmology and planetary systems. "What I'd tell any young person is: `Get yourself in a place with access to new tools, tools that will help you push the boundaries of what we know,' " says Warren Moos, director of the Center for Astrophysical Science at Johns Hopkins University. Beyond telescopes and other detectors, the contemporary astron-omer's most important tool is the computer, which processes and enhances the observing instruments' images and data. According to some scientists, computer expertise may open many doors for today's astronomical scientists. "Young astronomers use computers in ways we never dreamed of in the past," says Stephen Maran, an astronomer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and press officer of the American Astronomical Society. "They're certainly near the forefront of using computers for image processing." Image processing is one of the most promising computer specialties, in the telecommunications industry and here, Maran and others say, and a cutting-edge knowledge of it could be a key to jobs for young astronomers. Chemistry Many currently important subfields in chemistry lie near its boundaries, scientists say. These include biology-related fields, like the study of enzymes, and physics-related specialties, such as engineering new materials for particular physical properties, superconductivity, or fiber optic potential, for example. Other hot topics include organometallic chemistry and subdisciplines related to the biotechnology industry, such as environmental and bioanalytical chemistry, and the chemistry connected with drug-delivery systems. Because so much of chemistry's creative potential lies near its interface with other sciences, many chemists say a researcher with a broad knowledge base will probably be best able to latch on to the most exciting new developments. "We're making a big mistake in funding and training narrower and narrower chemists," says University of Minnesota chemistry professor Paul Gassman. "Science moves faster and faster. People who get too narrow miss the creative possibilities because they aren't prepared with a wide range of knowledge. They don't have knowledge of the left hand to bring to bear on the work of the right hand. To do really exciting chemistry today, you need to reach beyond it--not know just organic chemistry, but something about biological chemistry, physical chemistry, and so on." Benjamin Luberoff, founding editor of the journal Chemtech, says that getting that broader knowledge probably means learning a whole new way of information-gathering. "Kids coming out of school have a habit of getting just the information their professors pointed them toward, information communicated by people in their own specialty," he says. "But that doesn't suit the needs of the scientific community today. To solve the really interesting problems, the most important interfaces are often between a chemist and a patent lawyer, or a chemist and a medical doctor or a scientist from some other discipline." Cross-disciplinary activity, according to some scientists, is likewise spurring significant progress in ecology and the environmental sciences, where funding and job prospects have both gained strength over the past several years. Here, new techniques in molecular biology, analytical chemistry, and computer modeling, plus increased focus on interdisciplinary research have paved the way. "To do the most important research here, you need people who have the training across disciplines, say biology and geology or chemistry," says Frederic Pfaender, director of the Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. "That kind of multidisciplinary perspective is necessary to pose and answer questions like, `If it rains twice as much in the Midwest, what will happen to the plants there?' "People have begun to see the necessity of a multidisciplinary approach to such questions, and the funding is beginning to be there. There's about 50 percent more funding for this work now than there was 10 years ago, while we need an order of magnitude more. But I really do hope to see that within the next five years." Marcia Clemmitt is a freelance science writer based in Washington, D.C.

For Science Graduates: What Are Today's Most Fertile Disciplines?

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