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This IGERT program in population and environment has a focus on land use and land cover change. It features three longstanding interdisciplinary projects as “laboratories” for training and research: one based in Nang Rong, Thailand; a second in the Ecuadorean Amazon; and a third in Ngorongoro, Tanzania. Each project has… more »

This IGERT program in population and environment has a focus on land use and land cover change. It features three longstanding interdisciplinary projects as “laboratories” for training and research: one based in Nang Rong, Thailand; a second in the Ecuadorean Amazon; and a third in Ngorongoro, Tanzania. Each project has as its overall goal a better understanding of human behavior and agency in the transformation of the Earth’s surface. Deforestation, agricultural extensification, land fragmentation, intensification, degradation, secondary plant succession, and urbanization are unifying themes. The great strength and broader impacts of these projects collectively is their global reach and regional coverage. All involve collaboration with in-country scientists, who offer detailed local knowledge of field sites and data, facilitate fieldwork opportunities for trainees, and help to foster global perspectives on substantive and policy issues. The IGERT program will increase synergies within and across projects to the direct benefit of the trainees.

The intellectual merit of this program is that it builds on a firm base in a discipline (Ph.D.s are in a discipline or curriculum), adding coursework in complementary disciplines (population science for natural scientists; natural and spatial science for population scholars) and interdisciplinary training and research experiences. Scientists with a strong disciplinary base but with training in multiple perspectives will be ideally placed to bridge social, natural, and spatial science in research on population-environment interactions. The elements of the IGERT program are: a research apprenticeship on one of the population, land use, and environment projects; formal course work; participation in an ongoing interdisciplinary seminar; international field experience; and ethics training. In addition, an internship program will be created to involve undergraduates who are members of underrepresented groups in the projects and to encourage them to pursue interests in population and environment.

The IGERT training program will be housed at the Carolina Population Center (CPC) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). IGERT trainees will be provided with fully equipped offices at the CPC, where IGERT project faculty (the principal and co-investigators of the projects) maintain research offices and where the projects are staffed and based. The IGERT program joins and extends interdisciplinary training programs at the CPC and the Curriculum in Ecology and UNC-CH. Further, as part of the IGERT program, CPC and the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University will jointly sponsor a series of distinguished lectures, colloquia, and workshops. These will focus attention on population, land use, and environment issues on both campuses and lay a foundation for future collaborations among students and faculty at both institutions.

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. In this sixth year of the program, awards are being made to institutions for programs that collectively span the areas of science and engineering supported by NSF. « less