This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) award provides Ph.D. students at the University of California at Santa Barbara with the skills to design more efficient and robust empirical networks based on their analyses of large data sets derived from existing networks. By training students to examine multiple types of networks, such as genetic, economic, and social networks, this program aims to advance the field of Network Science.
Intellectual Merit: This traineeship program is a collaboration among seven graduate departments (Computer Science, Communication, Ecology, Evolution & Marine Biology, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Geography, Mechanical Engineering, and Sociology), which will enable trainees to learn computational methods to engineer, control, measure, and predict the dynamics of large networks. Through the program?s Network Science Laboratory, trainees will participate in team-based modules and obtain hands-on experience with software, empirical data sets, and interdisciplinary science. Additionally, trainees will participate in weekly seminars, summer internships, workshops, and an innovation program focused on problem solving and creative thinking.
Broader Impacts: By providing students with interdisciplinary training in Network Science, this program will advance the emerging field of Network Science and will serve as a model for similar academic programs across the nation. Moreover, this program aims to recruit, retain, and mentor 70% women and underrepresented minority students from University of California at Santa Barbara undergraduates as well as students from four partner institutions: California State University at San Bernardino, California State University at Los Angeles, University of California at Merced, and University of New Mexico, all of which are Hispanic Serving Institutions.
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 establish new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries, and to engage students in understanding the processes by which research is translated to innovations for societal benefit.
