GER-9554597 Bopp This proposal requests support for three (3) Graduate Traineeships in Hydrology, to be supervised in a collaborative effort by the Departments of Earth and Environmental Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Geological Sciences at Columbia University. Faculty from the Schools of Engineering at both RPI and CU would also participate as potential dissertation advisors. The strengths of the two institutions related to hydrology are generally quite distinct, with RPI emphasizing local and regional surface and groundwater field areas, including a considerable water management component imparted by Engineering School faculty participation, with CU, though Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the Goddard Institute of Space Studies (NASA), emphasizes interdisciplinary elements of number of fields, including paleoclimatology, atmospheric science, oceanography, dendrochronology and tracer geochemistry applications to the past several years that offer important new tools for investigations of surface and groundwaters through measurements of natural tracer substances including radionuclides, stable isotopes and chemicals such as freons. Students would matriculate at one of the tow institutions, and meet PhD requirements applicable there. Integration would be accomplished by having each student spend at least one semester in residence at the collaborating department, attending courses or doing field and laboratory work during their first three years. One member of the academic advisor team for each student would also be derived from the collaborating institution. Several ongoing joint research efforts between the two institutions on surface and groundwaters in the NYC and Hudson River valley areas would be expanded.
