Project Profile

The U.S. faces increasing water management challenges in the 21st century. Traditional single-discipline graduate education fails to meet the needs of complex water and watershed-management issues in the 21st century. The goal of the Integrative Graduate... more »

The U.S. faces increasing water management challenges in the 21st century. Traditional single-discipline graduate education fails to meet the needs of complex water and watershed-management issues in the 21st century. The goal of the Integrative Graduate Educational and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale in watershed science and policy is to recruit, mentor, and train a diverse group of outstanding Ph.D. students to become the scientists, managers, and leaders who will tackle tomorrow?s interconnected scientific, environmental, social, economic, and technical challenges at watershed and river basin scales. The central approach will be to train each year?s IGERT class as a collaborative, interdisciplinary cadre. Each cadre will collaborate to construct a comprehensive assessment and management plan for one river basin. Features of the proposed IGERT program include: (1) team-based collaboration; (2) a from-the-ground-up emphasis on multidisciplinary watershed issues and solutions; (3) integration of underrepresented groups as students, mentors, and trainees; (4) model-based data synthesis and policy; (5) practical experience via extended internships and mentored teaching experiences; (6) exposure to transboundary rivers and international watershed-management issues; and (7) graduates with training in national and international best practice in integrated watershed science and management. The program?s primary goal is to cultivate a new generation of watershed science and management graduates trained in solving complex, real-world problems. In so doing, a new model for graduate education centered on team-based collaboration across traditional disciplinary boundaries will be developed. 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. « less

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