Training Plan
We address four critical aspects of graduate education:
- communication skills, across disciplines and with managers and stakeholders from outside academia;
- collaboration and team-based learning in interdisciplinary research teams;
- mentorship; and
- tools and concepts from allied disciplines
We will admit 5 students per year to the program, distributed among biology, geography, mathematics and statistics. The IGERT will support students in their second and third years; other support (teaching or research assistantships) will come from mentors and home departments. UF will provide additional funds to support some students to work on continuing or new research or educational projects in years 4-5 of their programs (see below). All IGERT activities will be open to students with other sources of support. Faculty from two different disciplines will co-advise students.
| Year* | Semester 1* | Semester 2* | Summer* |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Spatial colloquium; disciplinary coursework | Spatial colloquium; disciplinary coursework | Disciplinary coursework |
| 2 | Spatial colloquium; gateway courses | Spatial colloquium; gateway courses | Cross-disciplinary rotations; modular courses |
| 3 | Spatial colloquium; Workshop in spatial dynamics (WSD): tools | Spatial colloquium; WSD: research | WSD: research and field visits; modular courses |
| 4-5 | Dissertation research; continuing research and training projects | ||
| * "Year" and "semester" refer to timing of
participation in the IGERT program; timing within students' overall PhD
program will vary. In particular, cohort 1 will start with "semester 1"
in Spring 2009, with summer intervening between "semester 1" and
"semester 2". The IGERT aims to provide as much flexibility as possible
for fellows (for example, rotationships/internships may be done in
other semesters to allow for summer fieldwork). We expect that the co-advisors of more flexible EEB students will demand some additional coursework. |
|||
In the first year, the only explicit IGERT requirement will be:
1. (All years) A weekly spatial dynamics colloquium on problems in spatial ecology and evolution will form the social core of the IGERT. The seminar will combine two different roles: (1) Topics in spatial ecology and evolution: These talks will follow a fairly standard research seminar format, except that speakers will present for only 30 minutes, with time allotted for discussion and with food and socializing afterwards. This biweekly aspect of the colloquium will include talks by outside academics, participating UF faculty, and - later in the program - talks by senior students. The colloquium will feature speakers from industry, government, and journalism discussing applied spatial problems and public communication, and faculty from underrepresented groups. (2) Science in context. The other half of the seminar will go beyond pure research to discuss the role of science in society, mentoring, communications, and ethics. Because IGERT students from several different cohorts will attend the colloquium, we will focus on different topics in different semesters, for example covering ethics three times over the course of the grant. We will run our initial ethics training activities in conjunction with the UF Adaptive Management IGERT. Students will help organize the colloquium; some sessions will be set aside for discussions of IGERT challenges. The colloquium will be open to all interested parties, but required for students supported in the current semester and (for some sessions) their mentors.
Biologists in their first two years, and mathematical scientists in their second years, will take:
2. (Years 1-2) Gateway courses, drawn from UF's wide range of existing courses, to bring them up to speed in areas outside their discipline. Biologists will take at least one statistics course (Intro. to Stats or Ecological Models and Data or Statistical Inference and Modelling) and at least one in mathematics (Models in Mathematical Biology). Mathematicians will take Ecology, complemented by a 1-credit seminar taught by an IGERT faculty member that covers evolutionary topics as well as allowing time for remedial and more-advanced integration of mathematical and biological topics, and at least one probability or statistics course. Statisticians and geographers will take Ecology (with the additional seminar) and mathematics courses (the Geography degree already mandates significant statistical coursework). Only one course per allied discipline will be required; IGERT support will provide mathematicians and statisticians the necessary teaching relief in their second year to free time for IGERT coursework and their disciplinary requirements. Biologists and geographers, with fewer mandated disciplinary courses, will take additional courses (e.g. [math] Linear Algebra; Partial Differential Equations; Biomathematics Seminar; [statistics] Analysis of Animal Movement; Spatial Statistics; [geography] GIS in Environmental Modeling, Environmental Remote Sensing). Gateway courses will provide students with core foundation skills, while balancing the disparate needs of students from different disciplines.
In the summer between their two NSF-funded years students will participate in:
3. (Year 2, typically in summer semester) cross-disciplinary rotations, working on independent research projects in IGERT faculty labs outside their home disciplines. These rotations, which may be targeted in areas relevant to the upcoming client projects, will provide students with cross-disciplinary exposure and research experience in other disciplines before the start of the client project in Year 3. Gateway courses should provide students with enough cross-disciplinary knowledge to undertake research projects.
4. (Year 3) In the workshop in spatial dynamics (WSD), students will work in supervised teams (for 3 credit-hours per semester) on interdisciplinary research. At the start of each workshop year (years 2-5 of the grant), students will choose an outside expert from a government agency or NGO with a research problem (e.g. USDA, The Nature Conservancy, Fish and Wildlife: see client descriptions above). The client will travel to UF several times in the academic year to meet with the class. The fall semester will be devoted to readings, lab exercises, and lectures on pertinent techniques, geographical and biological background (e.g. spatial population genetics, spatial models of human-environment interactions, models of invasive spread, mapping techniques), taught by a biologist, geographer, or statistician, with participation by other IGERT faculty. Students will actively participate, leading discussions on knowledge and tools from their discipline. In the spring semester, students will form smaller interdisciplinary research groups to pursue research projects; sub-projects will provide flexibility and improve the match with students' dissertation topics. At the end of the semester, groups will present reports to the client and receive feedback from clients and mentors on results and communication techniques. Client research will continue as a 3-credit course during the summer semester of students' third year. Each client project will have a faculty liaison with experience in the subject area. The faculty liaison will have overall responsibility for mentoring the students' work on the project. Typically the first semester (tool-building) will be co-taught by the faculty liaison and another faculty member in another discipline, although other arrangements are possible; the second semester (research) will be typically by led by the faculty liaison. During the tool-building semester students may be required or encouraged to take auxiliary courses (e.g. GIS or remote sensing, community ecology, plankton ecology) to cover additional relevant topics. Whether or not the whole cohort participates in a single class, students will be encouraged to take auxiliary courses in interdisciplinary groups; students with additional skills will serve as "experts" for the team. Teams will continue their research projects more independently during the summer semester, although the faculty liaison will still be available for consultation and guidance.
The Workshop in Spatial Dynamics will teach students skills targeted toward particular projects and provide experience in working collaboratively on real-world problems and communicating the solutions beyond academia.
4. (Years 4-5) In their final years students may submit competitive proposals (for either individual or interdisciplinary group research) to a review panel of IGERT students and faculty, for annual stipend and tuition support. This support will allow flexibility and provide incentives for retention. Students can apply as RESEARCH TEAMS to follow up on Workshop projects or tackle new research. They may also request support for interdisciplinary educational activities, either individually or in groups as TAs and co-instructors in other disciplines, in lieu of traditional home-department teaching. For example, a Mathematics graduate student may TA in a graduate geography/biology course with a strong quantitative component. These TAs will provide critical quantitative proficiency while learning biological applications and establishing professional relationships with instructors and students in other fields. Since NSF funding must be given for the full year, students may propose to combine teaching and research activities.
- Cross-department TAships: students from Mathematics and Statistics may work as TAs in quantitative courses in biology/geography (e.g., those involving modeling and data analysis).
- Undergraduate Modules: students from all disciplines may work as teams with faculty teaching undergraduate courses to design, implement, and assess modules to i) enhance quantitative aspects of biology and geography courses or ii) integrate geographical, ecological and evolutionary applications in mathematics and statistics courses.
- IGERT courses: senior students may be supported to serve as TAs for IGERT courses in lieu of their regular departmental TA assignments. Through a flexible, competitive mechanism, the research teams and interdisciplinary educational teams allow IGERT students to pursue additional activities while still making progress in their degree programs. The educational teams in particular leverage IGERT training with UF funding to spread interdisciplinary knowledge and excitement beyond the program.
5. To supplement existing courses and disseminate techniques beyond IGERT students, we will offer intensive week-long modular courses on focused (mostly statistical) topics emerging from the workshops, taught up to twice a year (August, March). (The UF Statistics department typically offers 2 to 3 such short courses each summer.) Examples could include: geostatistical analysis, spatial phylogenetics, Bayesian model selection. Modular courses provide an efficient mechanism for additional training benefiting students and faculty beyond the program.
6. Annual symposium: To highlight accomplishments of the educational and research teams we will organize a one-day spring Annual Symposium. Each team will present their research results or educational developments. The symposium will be coordinated with the site visit by the external advisory board and with recruitment trips for prospective students to the participating departments. We will also invite a keynote speaker (e.g., from the external advisory board) to give a seminar on integrative research. The annual symposium provides a venue for communication and showcases the program to UF students and faculty and beyond.
Communications and ethics training: The colloquium, annual symposium, and WSD will all allow students to practice and receive feedback on oral communication skills. Students will also present their research at appropriate national and international scientific meetings. The Adaptive Management IGERT at UF, now in its second year, is planning a seminar in ethics; we plan to coordinate our ethics training activities (which will be a biweekly part of the Spatial Dynamics Colloquium in selected years) to take advantage of their activities. We will start by enrolling our students in their seminar, then incorporate the insights and experience gained from their seminar into our continuing activities. This merging of ethics training in two related (but not identical areas) will begin a broader discussion about how to teach ethics in a cross-disciplinary way, transcending the current approach. Dr Marta Wayne (Zoology), who co-teaches a course in ethics for Genetics Institute graduate students, has volunteered to assist in planning these activities.
Mathematicians in the program will be exposed to ecological and evolutionary problems that illustrate non-trivial mathematical topics for thesis research; they will also work with biologists and geographers, which will be critical for their future success as contributors in mathematical biology and environmental modeling. Statistical research by its nature is often motivated by application; statisticians will be introduced to biological or geographical research areas requiring new statistical methodology and so obtain thesis topics with applied as well as theoretical components. Biologists and geographers have more flexibility in their graduate training and will thus take the most additional coursework; they will learn new mathematical and statistical techniques that will directly benefit their thesis work.
