Jack of all trades: Challenges and opportunities for mentoring in interdisciplinary research

Biomedical acoustics spans a particularly broad range of disciplines from neuroscience to quantum physics and everything in between. While this diversity is exciting and constantly stimulating, it can pose considerable challenges for students and mentors in finding the appropriate balance between breadth and depth. The aim of this talk is to share the author’s experience of designing graduate and undergraduate courses in biomedical acoustics and particularly of supervision and team building for graduate and post-doctoral researchers from different disciplines. Key topics will include the importance of co-supervision, promoting understanding and implementation of the scientific method; encouraging curiosity driven experiments; vital lessons from science communication; and finally the surprising insights provided by training to teach dance.