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This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) award is built around two grand challenges in biology: 1) How do genomes interact with the environment to produce biological diversity? and 2) How are biological systems integrated from molecules to ecosystems? Our training model is aimed at preparing students so that… more »

This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) award is built around two grand challenges in biology: 1) How do genomes interact with the environment to produce biological diversity? and 2) How are biological systems integrated from molecules to ecosystems? Our training model is aimed at preparing students so that they are empowered to learn how an organism’s traits emerge from, and are continually shaped by, a complex interplay of genetic information stored in DNA and environmental information that an organism experiences throughout its life. This training will equip students with the knowledge, tools and perspectives needed to address pressing scientific and societal problems, including: effects of climate change on agriculture and food security; responses of organisms and ecosystems to anthropogenic influences on landscapes; emergence of infectious diseases, and influences of genes on behavior.

This proposal uses a “back-to-the-future” educational model that asserts that the best way to use genomics to address grand challenges in biology is to have a graduate program that blends state-of-the-art training in genomics with an integrated, taxon-oriented, perspective. Our guiding principle is that to be able to use powerful new genomic resources as effectively as possible, students need to have strong foundation in the basic biology of the organisms they are studying. Another cornerstone of this IGERT is the recruiting and mentoring of underrepresented minorities into a scientific discipline. Because genomic topics often deal with provocative issues, students will also get training in scientific ethics and on how to communicate sensitive topics to the public.

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