U.S.-Australia Summer Research Institute in Tropical Australia

9900386SHEPHERD该奖项支持在澳大利亚建立一个夏季研究所，从1999年开始，到2003年每隔一年运行。 该项目源于1998年NSF东亚和太平洋计划支持的一个成功的试点项目，通过该项目，来自新墨西哥州大学（UNM）的12名本科生和2名研究生在澳大利亚度过了一个月，从事与热带生态学有关的研究。 该计划将为学生提供一个独特的机会，以获得广泛的知识，植物群和动物的Godwanan血统，同时学习实地研究和项目设计的基础。 在澳大利亚的教育和研究经验将持续四个多星期，在每隔一个夏天，并与新墨西哥州的一般荣誉司的大学与UNM的生物学系和各种澳大利亚主办团体，包括联邦科学和工业研究组织的支持下，组织和澳大利亚博物馆的研究站在吕宋岛。 学生将与澳大利亚的科学研究人员和保护组织以及UNM的教师直接合作。 他们将进行生态学和生物多样性研究的小型短期研究项目，同时穿越澳大利亚热带和亚热带的几个生物群落。 到课程结束时，每个学生都将准备在一个更独立的环境中工作，将获得现场生物学家的基本技能，并将进行从设计到书面和口头演示的研究项目。

9900386SHEPHERD This award supports the establishment of a Summer Research Institute in Australia commencing in 1999 and running in alternate years through 2003. This project grew out of a successful pilot project supported by the NSF East Asia and Pacific Program in 1998 through which twelve undergraduates and two graduate students from the University of New Mexico (UNM) spent a month in Australia engaged in research related to tropical ecology. The program will provide a diverse group of students a unique opportunity to acquire extensive knowledge of a flora and fauna of Godwanan ancestry while learning the fundamentals of field research and project design. The educational and research experience in Australia will last for just over four weeks in each alternate summer and is organized in conjunction with the University of New Mexico's General Honors Division with support from UNM's Department of Biology and a variety of Australian host groups, including the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, and the Australian Museum's Research Station at Lizard Island. The students will work in direct association with scientific researchers and conservation organizations in Australia, as well as faculty from UNM. They will conduct small, short-term research projects in ecology and biodiversity studies while traveling through several biomes of tropical and subtropical Australia. By the end of the program, each student will be prepared to work in a more independent setting, will have acquired the basic skills of a field biologist, and will have carried a research project all the way from design to both a written and oral presentation.