Synthesis Research for Graduate Students

Wed, 14 May 2014 12:36:18 -0400

The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), funded by a National Science Foundation grant to the University of Maryland, is very pleased to announce a new opportunity specially designed for PhD students.

The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) seeks proposals for independent synthesis research by graduate student teams focused on two broad Themes:

§ Cities in Sustainable Resource Management

§ Surprise in Human Adaptation to Environmental Change

The goal of this program is to engage graduate students and to offer experiential opportunities in team science, socio-environmental synthesis research, and transdisciplinary collaboration.

Teams will conduct an independent synthesis research project (“Pursuit”), which involves a series of face-to-face meetings at our Center in Annapolis, MD. Graduate student Pursuits will last 12–18 months and involve up to three meetings of approximately three days each at our Center. Although the composition and number of participants in each Pursuit will depend upon the skills, expertise, backgrounds, and time necessary to complete the proposed activities, we anticipate that core teams will be composed of 5–7 PhD students. In addition to the PhD students, Pursuit teams may also recruit up to three "external experts" whose targeted experience can provide supplemental input on how synthesis products may yield actionable outcomes. If recruited, external experts will supplement the activities of the core team as needed, and may include, for example, policy professionals, decision makers, government analysts, academic faculty, postdocs, NGO workers, master’s students, undergraduate students, and members from end-user communities.

SESYNC will provide support for travel and accommodations for all team members to attend meetings at the Center in Annapolis. Additional resources and expertise—particularly in areas of data aggregation, computational science, and informatics—may be available through SESYNC.

Upon Pursuit completion, each core team member will receive a $2,000.00 stipend and the title of SESYNC Graduate Student Fellow.