Achievement

The evolution of our international experiences is another programmatic success. For the last three summers we have funded approximately 12-16 student-initiated international trips each summer. These trips have taught the students new techniques and built collaborations between PIs. Some of these students (e.g., Caceres, Sieling, Soofi) have traveled or plan to travel repeatedly and have built long-term collaborations. We only fund these trips for collaborations – these are not mere field-trip-like outings nor are they a mechanism to fund travel to an international conference. Our IGERT does not have an explicit international partner, and in hindsight we would opt not to propose such a collaboration – this flexibility in travel arrangements has been a key ingredient in both building collaborations as well as teaching students new critical skills for their research.