Project Profile

This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) award supports the development at Rutgers University of a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional graduate training program in the area of renewable and sustainable fuel solutions. Together... more »

This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) award supports the development at Rutgers University of a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional graduate training program in the area of renewable and sustainable fuel solutions. Together with three other partnering institutions in the U.S., Virginia Union University, Delaware State University and the University of Puerto Rico, this new IGERT program emphasizes broad training that will produce a new generation of leaders and professionals who can design and implement sustainable solutions for renewable fuels worldwide. Fellows from this program will all be exposed to fundamentals in biotechnology, chemistry, ecology, engineering and energy policy through course works as well as internships and training opportunities in industry, government and academia. By requiring Fellows to be co-mentored in their dissertation research with faculty members from at least three different disciplines, this IGERT aims to foster research and training programs that will create and develop novel linkages between these disciplines. This effort will be reinforced with cyber-enabled core courses and team tutorials that will serve to educate all Fellows in basic understanding of the various topics related to renewable fuels. One major area of impact that this IGERT program will have is globally-relevant energy research, a topic that has geopolitical as well as broad economic implications for 6.6 billion people today and future generations. Participating faculty from Rutgers will present research at large minority-serving institutions, HBCUs, and women’s colleges in the United States in order to attract students from these institutions to the IGERT project. Coordinating through Biotechnology Center for Agriculture and the Environment and the Rutgers Energy Institute, participants from 14 research Institutes and Centers at Rutgers University involving 43 faculty members will partner with institutions in Brazil, China and South Africa to further expose IGERT Fellows to complexities of the fuel problem worldwide. As such, it is expected that many of the graduates from this IGERT program will become leaders and experts to shape our country’s future energy economy and policy, thereby benefiting the Nation’s energy security as well as to cope with the complex issue of climate changes. « less

Key: Project Partner