IGERT: Model-based Approaches to Biological and Cultural Evolution

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This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) award establishes a novel Ph.D. training program designed to bridge the gap between anthropology and biology. The program provides students in both fields a common curriculum that emphasizes evolutionary processes of adaptation and diversification in genetic, behavioral, and cultural domains. Students will become adept in state-of-the-art methods including computational modeling, game theory and phylogenetic analysis that are applicable to study of evolutionary processes across these domains. Students enter the program through the Department of Anthropology or the School of Biological Sciences at Washington State University, Pullman, or through the Department of Anthropology at the University of Washington, Seattle. They spend at least one term taking courses or pursuing research at the sister institution, and form research teams across these universities and disciplines, allowing them to draw on relevant expertise in either sponsoring university. In addition they have the opportunity to pursue research at a domestic partner, the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, and at three international partners: the Centre for the Evolution of Cultural Diversity, University College London; Le Centre Universitaire de Recherche et de Documentation en Histoire et Archologie, Central African Republic; and the University of Costa Rica. The program aims to educate professionals versed in evolutionary approaches integrating the study of biology and culture, familiar with the most important perspectives and quantitative techniques for studying culture change and the evolution of social behavior in both humans and non-humans. Outreach to area schools and local native American groups is planned to strengthen the teaching of evolution in K-12 schools and to increase the breadth of approaches for understanding evolution. IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the interdisciplinary background, deep knowledge in a chosen discipline, and the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education by establishing innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries.