This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) award supports the establishment of a unique doctoral training program in Integrative Bioscience at Northern Arizona University. The purpose of this program is to provide students with a robust multidisciplinary curriculum and research training that spans disciplines from molecular genetics to ecosystem sciences to spatial and temporal modeling. All students will receive training in each of these areas, so that program graduates will have the skills to address fundamental and applied questions of how genes affect ecosystem function and response. The NAU-IGERT program will provide students with many opportunities to pursue these questions in the context of strong research programs in the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences and the School of Forestry. Students from under-represented minority populations will be actively recruited in order to build on the success of undergraduate minority student programs already in place at Northern Arizona University. Unique aspects of this program will include: 1) multidisciplinary environmental bioscience research with a special emphasis on scaling phenomena, 2) inclusion of molecular methodology and applied statistics coursework in all programs of study, 3) specially designed seminar courses covering scientific ethics, statistics and modeling, student research, and guest speakers from integrative disciplines, 4) unique internships to broaden the graduate experience and enhance connections between the research and the broader community. Specialized internship opportunities will be available working with community colleges, federal agencies, and Native American high schools. The NAU-IGERT program will prepare innovative and creative scientists to become leaders not only in research, but also in science outreach and communication and in environmental problem solving. 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.
(0549505) Intellectual Merit. The NSF Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program at Northern Arizona University (NAU)—IGERT - Integrative Bioscience: Genes to Environment—provided 28 outstanding graduate students with traineeship opportunities from 2006 to 2012. Seventy-five percent of the students enrolled in Ph.D. programs in the Department of Biological Sciences and 25% in the School of Forestry. Of the program’s 28 students, 17 students (61%) are female and 11 students are male (39%). Twenty-five percent of the program’s students are of Native American, Hispanic, or Pacific Islander descent, groups traditionally underrepresented in science. Although all 28 students successfully completed the requirements for the 2-year program, three students subsequently left NAU before completing their Ph.D. degree, an attrition rate of 11%. Ten students have completed their degree program thus far, with at least four more students planning to complete their program this academic year. The program successfully fulfilled its primary purpose of providing doctoral students with a robust multidisciplinary curriculum and research training that spans disciplines from molecular genetics to ecosystem sciences to spatial and temporal modeling. Students were required to have multidisciplinary committees, faculty and graduate students from various disciplines were brought together in courses and seminars, and funds were provided for students to pursue outside seminars and to bring outside researchers to NAU. In addition to working with faculty in their home departments, 83% of the students worked with NAU faculty in other departments, 67% of the students worked with faculty from other U.S. universities, and 44% worked with faculty from universities outside the U.S. The value of working collaboratively was not lost on the students. When citing the strongest influences of the program, students rated development of interdisciplinary collaboration skills 4.21 (mean) on a 5-point scale (5 being very important). A number of educational innovations also have grown out of the program. For example, a new course, Genes to the Environment, was developed specifically for the IGERT program but was and continues to be offered to a wide spectrum of students. NAU has institutionalized the coursework on molecular techniques and statistics/modeling that was developed as the result of the program’s focus on genes to the environment. For example, NAU’s Mathematics and Statistics Department has augmented its curriculum to include expertise with non-frequentist statistics. Additionally, NAU has strengthened its commitment to promoting genetic data analysis within student learning experiences, hiring a professor specializing in next generation DNA sequencing approaches. This professor has offered workshops that are improving the analysis of genetic data and forging new linkages between biology and computer science for IGERT students. These workshops were extremely well received and have been expanded into a graduate level bioinformatics course this fall (2012). The students’ cutting-edge interdisciplinary research projects involved mentoring and research guidance by more than 20 faculty members in five academic departments at NAU. IGERT student research resulted in more than 40 publications in prestigious journals including Ecology Letters, New Phytologist, Botany, Ecological Applications, Global Change Biology, Plant and Soil, and American Biology Teacher. Many more manuscripts are in press or review. Students also disseminated the results of their work during more than 120 presentations at technical meetings and conferences; took part in numerous outreach activities at K-12 schools, Tribal/community colleges, and other institutions; and participated in an award-winning film. Broader Impacts. All IGERT Fellows developed and participated in internships with community organizations, K-12 schools, Tribal/community colleges, or other institutions. Fellows have created curriculum for school children, developed and led field-based geospatial workshops for community college faculty and students, developed manuals for land managers to understand the importance of recent research findings, organized monthly talks by scientists at a local, popular venue, trained Nicaraguan scientists in field biology techniques, and developed a website on how to live with wildlife for new property owners in the western United States. Several NAU IGERT students and faculty were featured in the documentary film, A Thousand Invisible Cords: Connecting Genes to Ecosystems. The hour-long documentary traces a 30-year journey that led to the remarkable discovery that small changes in just a few lines of genetic code in a foundation species such as a cottonwood tree can have cascading effects on an ecosystem—from the community’s insects and soil microbes to its birds and mammals. The film explains complex concepts in a simple way in order to expand the scientific literacy of the general public. The award-winning documentary will be broadcast on more than 150 PBS television stations during the fall of 2012, which represents more than 60% of the PBS market, including some of the country’s largest markets—New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Dallas and Phoenix.
