Achievement

IGERT Cohort adds value to bioenergy development on the Yakama Reservation. IGERT students, working with professionals from the Yakama Nation and Grant County Public Utility District, have define some of the key system-of-system interactions that will make the development of a bioenergy facility on the reservation a success or failure. The students show clear interactions between the technological development of the power plant, and the economic, environmental and political forces that will shape the potential benefits for the Yakama People and Citizens of Washington. At the Washington Tribal Summit (April, 2009), Yakama Tribal Chair Ralph Sampson cited the IGERT project as an exemplar for productive participatory research collaborations.