Graduate Interdisciplinary Programs Honored GIDP Faculty Vicki L. Chandler, a molecular biologist and geneticist par-excellence, is the newest moving force in interdisciplinary research and academic training at The University of Arizona. Her pioneering work in clarifying the mechanisms of gene regulation in maize earned her one of the most prestigious accolades from her fellow scientists--election as a full member to the National Academy of Sciences. Leading the Bio5 Institute, the interdisciplinary amalgam of five different colleges, Dr. Chandler brings to the University, and the Bio5 Institute, the spirit of interdisciplinary research and teaching that have been acknowledged by her peers by being named to the Board of the Gordon Research Conferences, the Presidency of the American Society of Plant Biology, and membership on the Biological Directorate Advisory Committee for the National Science Foundation. Dr. Chandler and the Bio5 Institute are among the stellar expressions of interdisciplinarity at The University of Arizona. The essentiality of crossing disciplines in order to promote new discoveries and provide a stronger foundation for our graduate students was expressed most succinctly recently by none other than the Director of the National Institutes of Health Dr. Zerhouni said “The scale and complexity of today's biomedical research problems increasingly demand that scientists move beyond the confines of their own discipline and explore new organizational models for team science." This is the motivation, the passion and the convictions on which the Graduate Interdisciplinary Programs at The University of Arizona continue to be rooted and supported by the University.