This IGERT award supports the establishment of a multidisciplinary graduate training program of education and research in environmental economics (including resource economics), integrating environmental science with economics. The vision of the Program is to provide the first truly multidisciplinary Ph.D. program in environmental economics, a program that does not compromise the depth of economics education nor the depth of education in a companion natural science discipline. Most Ph.D. programs in environmental economics are either very narrowly economic in orientation or disciplinarily broad, with some strength in a variety of disciplines, including economics. This new IGERT program seeks a third path, producing Ph.D.s who are as well trained in economics as any graduating from a good economics department but who also have Ph.D. level depth in one of four complementary fields of natural science: climate, conservation biology, hydrology and marine science. The complementary science fields specified are not intended to be comprehensive but rather to reflect faculty strengths at UCSB. IGERT fellowship support facilitates the additional curricular burden of significant coursework in a companion area of natural science. During the first half of their nominal five years in the Program, students acquire strength in economics and their companion natural science discipline, primarily through coursework. As students move into the second half of their tenure in the Program, they become absorbed in research and research workshops, culminating in the writing of the dissertation. In addition to coursework, three features of the curriculum are designed to build multidisciplinary strength: (i) research seminars in environmental policy, environmental economics, and the chosen complementary field of natural science; (ii) development of an original empirical paper as an intermediate step to the dissertation; and (iii) assisting faculty with the supervision of Masters students involved in group thesis work. Other aspects of the program are designed to strengthen student research skills, introduce issues of ethics in research and develop skills for entering the job market. It is the goal of this IGERT Program to train the next generation of environmental economists, people who can truly bridge the gap between economics and the natural sciences that underlie environmental problems. The program described is comprehensive, designed to turn out research leaders and innovative thinkers. These graduates will enrich the workplace, both academic and nonacademic.
IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the multidisciplinary backgrounds and the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education by establishing new, innovative models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries. In the fourth year of the program, awards are being made to twenty-two institutions for programs that collectively span all areas of science and engineering supported by NSF. The intellectual foci of this specific award reside in the Directorates for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences; Geosciences; Biological Sciences; and Education and Human Resources.
