Writing | Vanessa Schipani

-Featured Work-

Master's thesis

The Connectome: A Unifying Boundary Object in Neuroscience

In this thesis, I argue that the connectome is a unifying boundary object in neuroscience. In the first chapter, I show that the dual realness and construction of scientific objects paves the way for the robustness and plasticity of boundary objects, a specific kind of scientific object. These two sets of qualities make up the first and second tier dualities of my thesis argument. In the second chapter, I argue that a third tier duality -- the unity and autonomy of neuroscience’s fields -- comes about through the collaboration of researchers from all walks of the discipline to describe the connectome. In the conclusion, I paralleled the connectome's role in neuroscience with the gene's role as a unifying boundary object in 20th century biology. I also discuss how my conclusions concerning the connectome and the gene may be broadened into a theory about the development of all scientific disciplines -- namely, that a more mature discipline’s methodology for explanation may lay the foundation for a younger discipline’s methodology for description, which may then lay the groundwork for explanation in that younger discipline at a later stage. In other words, I argue that disciplines may unify twice: first around a methodology for structural description and again around a methodology for functional explanation. Download my full thesis here.

FEMS Microbiology Ecology

S. Duperron, D. De Beer, M. Zbinden, A. Boetius, V. Schipani, N. Kahil, F. Gaill, "Molecular characterization of bacteria associated with the trophosome and the tube of Lamellibrachia sp., a siboglinid annelid from cold seeps in the eastern Mediterranean," FEMS Microbiology Ecology, Volume 69, Issue 3, 3 August 2009, Pages 395–409, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1574-6941.2009.00724.x

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