9870703 Nowak This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) award will support the establishment of a broadly- based graduate training program that will equip students to combine the social, economic and biological sciences in the study of environmental problems presented by freshwater ecosystems. Problem areas to be emphasized will include studies of the economic value of environmental resources, the role of humans in the vulnerability of ecosystems to natural change, the impact of irreversible environmental changes, and the effect of ecosystem features on societal interactions. The project is a joint effort of 20 faculty from the Departments of Agriculture and Applied Economics, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Forest Ecology and Management, Limnology, Rural Sociology, Soil Science and Zoology. NSF support will provide stipends for 14 graduate students each year, for one postdoctoral student and for related costs of student research training. Educational opportunities will center on three required IGERT seminar courses, one on selected topics related to current IGERT faculty research, one on relevant research methods, and one on team research during which student teams will test hypotheses generated from the topics and methods seminars. Students will also spend at least three months as an intern in a Federal or Wisconsin State natural resources management agency. The postdoctoral student will both participate in and help organize the IGERT training activities, including an annual retreat for participating faculty and students. In addition to its education and research initiatives, the program plans a continuos self-evaluation effort led by a faculty member from the School of Education. IGERT is a new, NSF-wide program whose goal is to sponsor the establishment of innovative, research-based graduate programs that will train a diverse group of new scientists and engineers to be well-prepared for varied careers in the private and public sectors. IGERT provides an opportunity for the development of new, well-focused multidisciplinary ograms that bridge traditional organizational barriers, uniting faculty from several departments or institutions to establish a highly-interactive collaborative environment for both training and research. In its first year, the program will provide support to 17 institutions for new or nascent programs that collectively span all areas of science, engineering and mathematics eligible for support by the NSF.
