Project Profile

New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology

CUNY Graduate School

Short title:

NYCEP

Status:

Active since 2003

NSF Award Number:

0333415

Institution:

CUNY Graduate School

Location:

New York, NY

Project Website:

http://www.nycep.org/

Principal Investigator:

Eric Delson

Partners:

American Museum of Natural History
Columbia University
New York University
Wildlife Conservation Society

Themes:

Biological evolution and development
Bioinformatics

Related NSF Directorates:

Biological Sciences
Social, Behaviorial, and Economic Sciences

Keywords:

behavior conservation ecology evolution genetic molecular morphology morphometrics paleoanthropology paleontology primate phylogeny sociality statistics systematics

Abstract

NYCEP, the New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology, is a graduate research and training program funded for the past 6 years by an NSF IGERT award and for 11 previous years by an NSF Research Training Groups (RTG) award. In drawing faculty from City University of New York, Columbia University, New York University, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Wildlife Conservation Society (home of the Bronx Zoological Park), NYCEP represents a rare combination of public and private universities together with privately endowed (and publicly assisted) institutions dedicated to education and bringing science to the public. Our consortium links students with nearly 60 faculty whose research perspectives on human and nonhuman primates include behavior/ecology, comparative morphology/paleontology, and molecular/population genetics. Students take courses in all these areas, attend seminars drawing on the staff of all five institutions, and have multiple opportunities to conduct original research at international field sites, laboratories, and museums. NYCEP is unique for the range and diversity of courses and research opportunities that it offers.
Since 1992, we have trained some 160 students (including 93 females and 20 from groups underrepresented in science) with benefit from NSF funding, and we awarded 50 Ph.D.s to those with direct NYCEP funding (25 female, 25 male); many have obtained high-profile positions in universities, zoos and industry. In the past six years, IGERT support has enabled NYCEP to implement novel and successful educational initiatives, including: a year-long course dedicated to ethical awareness and professionalism; a semi-annual conference showcasing NYCEP research; required international field-based research experiences; and undergraduate teaching and outreach experiences for trainees.
In future years, NYCEP plan sto broaden multidisciplinary training and research in conservation biology and paleoanthropology; extend partnerships with geologists and geochronologists at Columbia and develop new ones at Rutgers University and with colleagues at international institutions such as the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI, Leipzig, Germany), which has the same three intellectual foci as NYCEP; extend our relationship with AMNH, whose first-in-the-nation museum-based Graduate School will include NYCEP-funded students; streamline our curriculum to enable students to move more quickly toward the Ph. D. and publish earlier; expand international research opportunities; and develop novel approaches to recruitment of underrepresented groups, including summer outreach workshops. « less