IGERT FORMAL PROPOSAL: Integrated Graduate Education and Research Training in Geographic Information Science

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9870668 Mark This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) award will support the establishment of a broadly- based graduate training program in geographic information science, an emerging area of research that lies at the intersection of the cognitive, computational and social sciences. The program will be a joint effort of 19 faculty and of 6 non-academic mentors who will supervise students during internships in the private and public sector. Participating faculty come from 7 departments and the school of library and information science. The collaborative research foci of participants range from basic studies the ontogeny of human conceptions of geographic space to applied research in practical applications such as delivery of governmental services and environmental modeling. NSF support will provide stipends for 18 graduate students each year, and for related costs of student research training. Students will register in and satisfy the coursework requirements of any one of 7 existing departmental Ph.D. programs, but will have IGERT- specific requirements for 4 courses and must choose from a restricted set of elective courses. Of these required and elective courses, five are to be created specifically for the IGERT program. As part of their training, students will complete an internship at a major software company or at the Buffalo police department. IGERT is a new, NSF-wide program whose goal is to sponsor the establishment of innovative, research-based graduate programs that will train a diverse group of new scientists and engineers to be well-prepared for varied careers in the private and public sectors. IGERT provides an opportunity for the development of new, well-focused multidisciplinary programs that bridge traditional organizational barriers, uniting faculty from several departments or institutions to establish a highly-interactive collaborative environment for both training and research. In its first year, the p rogram will provide support to 17 institutions for new or nascent programs that collectively span all areas of science, engineering and mathematics eligible for support by the NSF.