IRES: Behavioral Ecology Research Training in Australia

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IRES 1460048 ABSTRACT (KARUBIAN, TULANE UNIVERSITY)NON-TECHNICAL DESCRIPTIONInternational collaborations are becoming increasingly important in scientific research, but students and young researchers from the US face significant barriers to establishing productive research collaborations with international colleagues. This in turn limits the competitiveness of the US to conduct top-level science. This IRES project is designed to help meet these challenges by providing students and young researchers with opportunities for international training early in their educational and professional trajectories. This three-year project will support a total of 21 undergraduate and graduate students from three US institutions for research training and cultural experiences in Australia. The students will work with the U.S. PIs and Australian researchers on how dynamic environmental factors influence the social structure, behavior, and fitness of small songbirds in an understudied environment?dry forests -outside Brisbane. The project will provide technical training in modern integrative behavioral ecology methods, and will build the capacity of IRES students to work with foreign collaborators in the future. IRES students will also use a range of dissemination modalities, including professional presentations at conferences, peer-reviewed journal publications, video, and internet productions, to increase interest in international research among US university students, K-12 students, and the general public. Participants will receive intensive mentoring before, during, and after their international experience from both U.S. and Australian senior researchers. The project will broaden access to international STEM research by actively recruiting and retaining students from under-represented groups. In doing so, it will fulfill the IRES program goals of educating a globally-engaged science and engineering workforce capable of performing in an international research environment. TECHNICAL DESCRIPTIONThis IRES project is designed to educate a globally-engaged science and engineering workforce capable of excelling in an international research environment. It will achieve this goal by providing individuals with opportunities for international training early in their educational and professional trajectories, with a focus on students in groups that are traditionally under-represented in STEM. The three-year project will provide a total of 21 undergraduate and graduate students from three US institutions with international research training and cultural experiences in Australia. The students will work with the U.S. PIs and Australian researchers on how dynamic environmental factors influence the social structure, behavior, and fitness of small songbirds in an understudied environment?dry sclerophyll forests outside Brisbane. IRES students will leverage a NSF-funded automated telemetry system and existing research by PIs and Australian hosts on the study site to produce high tier, student-led publications. In doing so, this project will train a cadre of undergraduate and graduate students and motivate these students to pursue scientific research careers with an international focus, thus contributing to the U.S. scientific workforce and making a significant contribution to STEM education for under-represented groups.