Drought, the overuse of water resources, deteriorating water quality, and climate variability are contributing to increasingly frequent and sometimes permanent water shortages for agriculture. This is a major concern because irrigated farms contribute to approximately half of US crop sales, greater crop yields, reduced poverty, affordable food, and positive health and nutrition outcomes. Water conservation alone is not enough. Unconventional water resources must be used, but the overwhelming barrier is energy cost. The energy sector is undergoing a significant transformation as a result of the incorporation of renewable wind and solar energy. There is an opportunity of increasingly available renewable energy to provide inexpensive and plentiful water for water-stressed agricultural lands. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award to the University of Texas at Austin will train a new generation of students to develop transformative and globally relevant solutions to use unconventional water resources for agriculture by harnessing power from renewable energy and recovering energy-containing resources from "dirty" water. Technical skills alone are insufficient to advance these efforts, so trainees will be taught to think critically, understand technical, financial and societal challenges to technology implementation, and communicate complex ideas freely, and at the appropriate level, with stakeholders from all walks of life. The project anticipates training a diverse cohort of thirty-six (36) MS and PhD students, including eighteen (18) funded trainees, from engineering, geosciences, and public affairs.
Project goals are to develop and institutionalize a new model in STEM education that directly supports and informs research activities, professional development, and societal improvement; to develop transformative water solutions for agriculture through interdisciplinary research; and to enhance graduate student and workforce diversity. The new educational model consists of five program elements: (1) four core courses plus a food-energy-water systems (FEWS) seminar, (2) personalized professional development activities in communication, management, entrepreneurship, and job preparation, (3) dual-faculty and alumni mentoring of trainees, (4) FEWS-relevant internships, and (5) local public service. The courses and seminar will be institutionalized through a new FEWS certificate program, and the professional development activities will become a permanent institutional element through a portfolio program. A key novelty of the traineeship is complementing classroom knowledge with experiential learning through internship and public service. The research effort will advance disruptive technology development in new materials, water treatment processes, and renewable energy sources; decision support modeling for integration of energy and water treatment processes; and global assessment of policy and technology diffusion. Diversity will be enhanced by outreach and recruiting at four minority-serving institutions in Texas, and through direct collaboration with Prairie View A&M University, where trainees will engage with faculty and undergraduates to do field work in sustainable agriculture.
The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The program is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary research areas through comprehensive traineeship models that are innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
