The continuing origin of novel form and function characterizes life on Earth. Although changes occur within populations, they transform genomes to alter the development of individuals. While evolution, developmental biology, and genomics are integral to understanding life, virtually all current trainers of graduate students were, themselves, formally trained exclusively as either population biologists, or embryologists, or molecular biologists, or computer scientists. This program's interdisciplinary research theme is to train graduate students to investigate emerging problems at the interface of evolution, development, genomics, and bioinformatics by combining expertise at the University of Oregon and Indiana University. The program's intellectual focus asks how development of new structures and functions evolve in populations over time, and what are the mechanisms of genome change that accompany the evolution of developmental innovations? Innovative education and training features integrate interdisciplinary research as trainees work with co-advisors in different disciplines, take unique Evolution of Development courses, and interact with faculty at the University of Oregon and Indiana University in person and in video conference. Trainees develop professional and personal skills by making critiqued presentations at weekly EvoDevo Journal Clubs, develop teamwork skills working with various faculty on research projects, hone teaching skills in supervised college teaching, gain mentoring skills working with undergraduate minority research students, and contact renowned researchers the annual IGERT symposium. Broader impacts include activities to recruit, mentor, and retain underrepresented graduate students, and the mentoring of research undergraduates from underrepresented groups. The project will increase the cadre of researchers trained to conduct research at the cutting edge of fused academic disciplines, with practical implications for the understanding of complex traits (including multifactorial diseases), the development of improved agricultural crops, and an understanding of how our biological world came to be. IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the interdisciplinary background, deep knowledge in a chosen discipline, 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 innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries.
Our over-arching goal was to provide a diverse population of graduate students at the University of Oregon and Indiana University with the intellectual grounding and research skills necessary to contribute to the synthesis of the intersecting fields of evolutionary biology and developmental biology and genomics. The training facuty mentored 37 trainees. The accomplishments of our trainees were solid and have landed them in good post-trainee positions. These include 8 assistant professors, 16 postdoctoral researchers, and 4 others in science careers. A major educational achievement was our semi-annual Evolution, Development, and Genomics Symposium. This meeting, which we held eight times over the course of the project (the first award and the current renewal), provided numerous opportunities to broaden the education of our trainees. At these meetings: (a) University of Oregon trainees met and discussed research with Indiana University trainees. (b) Trainees met and discussed research with faculty from the sister institution. (c) Trainees presented their research in poster sessions where they were critiqued by the invited speakers. (d) Trainees heard research presentations by the distinguished invited speakers, and had an opportunity to interact with them on a direct personal level. Some of these contacts led to post-doctoral research experiences in the lab of the speaker. (e) UO and IU faculty met, discussed formally the way the program is going, how to make mid-course corrections, iron out problems, and improve trainee experiences. These meetings were important for the field, as evidenced by the interest shown by the press, particularly Science magazine, which printed two page reports on two of our symposia.
