RUI: Unsolicited WPMS: Enhancing Career Opportunities - Integrative Mathematical Program for Analyzing Coastal Systems (ECO-IMPACS)

增强就业机会-海岸系统分析综合数学计划（ECO-IMPACS）是萨姆休斯顿州立大学（SHSU）和德克萨斯州环境研究所（TRIES）的环境数学劳动力计划。 ECO-IMPACS计划将为数学和生物科学的学生提供机会，合作开展前沿研究计划，研究最近的环境波动如何影响阿兰萨斯国家野生动物保护区（ANWR）的沿海沼泽生态系统。 具体来说，学生将研究如何水文，营养和物理驱动程序影响濒危的高鸣起重机（鹤美洲）的关键食物资源。ECO-IMPACS学生将了解ANWR的生物学，前往ANWR收集现场数据，并在TRIES实验室分析他们的数据。 ECO-IMPACS学生将学习环境科学中动力学模型构建的基本原理和应用数学的基本理论。 通过他们的课堂，实地和实验室工作，ECO-IMPACS学生将创建和分析水文通量，藻类种群动态和水生植被生长的数学模型。 学生将研究基于代理的非线性微分和差分方程模型，并利用无量纲化，稳态的局部和全局稳定性计算，周期解存在性的探索，扰动方法，分叉分析，模拟和数值计算解决方案，以及参数敏感性分析等技术分析模型行为。 研究生不仅将促进学习过程的每个阶段，而且还将纳入更先进的数学，如随机建模。 社区合作伙伴将交流他们的研究目标和学生的努力将集中在整个建模过程中这些目标。 ECO-IMPACS学生将被要求向社区合作伙伴清楚和实际地展示他们的结果，并证明他们的数学模型可以作为有效的工具来指导社区合作伙伴的研究和更好地了解ANWR生态系统。 生物科学中综合建模和计算解决方案的重要性促使许多大学创建和支持环境数学课程。 ECO-IMPACS计划是一个合作和教育计划，植根于正在进行的阿兰萨斯国家野生动物保护区沿海沼泽生态系统动态研究。 ANWR生态系统的异质性和系统中自然和人为影响的广泛性为数学和生物科学学生之间的合作提供了多种机会。 在ECO-IMPACS计划中，学生将根据在现场和实验室收集的数据构建数学模型，对这些模型进行理论和数值分析，并以立即适用于我们社区合作伙伴目标的方式报告其结果（例如，得克萨斯州公园和野生动物部和国际起重机基金会）。 数学和生物学的学生在科学方法的各个阶段的参与将产生一个更统一的观点，使用建模，模拟，实验室程序，并在一个综合的设置现场的方法。 ECO-IMPACS的主要目标是为本科生和研究生提供暑期实习，培养他们成功整合数学和生物学的能力，以完成环境数学领域的入门级任务。 学生将发展关键技能，美国雇主希望他们的员工（例如，环境采样技术，数学建模，口头和书面交流，团队合作，批判性思维和解决问题），因为他们收到反馈和指导教师和社区合作伙伴。因此，ECO-IMPACS参与者将更好地为绿色经济中的数学和环境导向职业做好准备。 该奖项由数学科学部内的劳动力和数学生物学计划共同支持。

Enhancing Career Opportunities - Integrative Mathematical Program for Analyzing Coastal Systems (ECO-IMPACS) is a workforce program in environmental mathematics at Sam Houston State University (SHSU) and the Texas Research Institute for Environmental Studies (TRIES). The ECO-IMPACS program will provide students from mathematical and biological sciences the opportunity to collaborate on a cutting edge research program to study how recent environmental fluctuations have impacted coastal marsh ecosystems at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Specifically, students will examine how hydrologic, nutrient and physical drivers affect key food resources of the endangered whooping crane (Grus americana). ECO-IMPACS students will learn about the biology of ANWR, travel to ANWR to collect field data, and analyze their data in a TRIES laboratory. ECO-IMPACS students will be instructed on the fundamentals of dynamical model building in the environmental sciences and basic theories of applied mathematics. Informed by their classroom, field, and laboratory work, ECO-IMPACS students will create and analyze mathematical models of hydrologic fluxes, algae population dynamics, and aquatic vegetation growth. Students will investigate agent based and nonlinear differential and difference equation models and analyze model behavior utilizing techniques such as non-dimensionalization, computation of the local and global stability of steady-states, exploration of the existence of periodic solutions, perturbation methods, bifurcation analysis, simulation and numerical computation of solutions, and parameter sensitivity analysis. Graduate students will not only facilitate each stage of the learning process, but also incorporate more advanced mathematics such as stochastic modeling. Community partners will communicate their research objectives and student efforts will be focused on these objectives throughout the modeling process. ECO-IMPACS students will be asked to clearly and practically present their results to community partners and demonstrate that their mathematical models can be used as effective tools to guide community partner research and better understand the ANWR ecosystem. The importance of integrative modeling and computational solutions within the biological sciences has motivated many universities to create and support programs in environmental mathematics. The ECO-IMPACS program is a collaborative and educational program that is rooted in ongoing research on ecosystem dynamics of coastal marshes in the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. The heterogeneous nature of the ANWR ecosystem and wide range of both natural and anthropogenic influences in the system provide multiple opportunities for collaboration between students in mathematical and biological sciences. In the ECO-IMPACS program, students will construct mathematical models based on data collected in the field and in the laboratory, perform theoretical and numerical analyses of these models, and report their results in terms that are immediately applicable to the objectives of our community partners (e.g., Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the International Crane Foundation). The involvement of mathematics and biology students in all phases of the scientific method will produce a more unified perspective about the use of modeling, simulation, laboratory procedures, and field methods in an integrative setting. The primary goals for ECO-IMPACS are to provide undergraduate and graduate students with a summer internship that develops their ability to successfully integrate mathematics and biology to complete entry level assignments in the field of environmental mathematics. Students will develop critical skills that U.S. employers desire of their employees (e.g., environmental sampling techniques, mathematical modeling, oral and written communications, teamwork, critical thinking, and problem solving) as they receive feedback and guidance from faculty members and community partners. Thus, ECO-IMPACS participants will be better prepared for both mathematical and environmentally oriented careers in a green economy. This award is jointly supported by the Workforce and Mathematical Biology programs within the Division of Mathematical Sciences.