Achievement

As part of the training for our IGERT fellows and NSMS graduate students, we have implemented a course that focuses on proposal development and writing. This course is offered in the Fall semester of the first year. It engages the students in reading literature related to the research they are interested in pursuing. During the course of the semester, the students develop a novel research idea. They are required to develop the motivation for the multidisciplinary research, formulate a central hypothesis and theme for the research, outline what research methods will be used and ultimately develop a full research plan, complete with timelines and research goals that will assist in solidifying a reasonable time to graduation plan. The training goals of this exercise are to prepare IGERT fellows for future careers in academia and industry, where a significant portion of time is devoted to garnering research grants and start-up funds.