NRT: Soft Materials for Life Sciences

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NRT: Soft Materials for Life SciencesThis National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award engages faculty and students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in a new graduate education model that brings together life scientists, physical scientists and engineers. To prepare highly skilled STEM students for the modern economy of the 21st century, the project will provide training breadth across multiple professional and technical skill areas while developing depth in the trainee's area of specialization. The program will serve masters and doctoral students in the disciplines of polymer science and engineering, immunology, food science, and several engineering fields. The traineeship anticipates preparing seventy-four (74) graduate students, including twenty-eight (28) funded trainees, many of whom will direct their career aims beyond research or academia to work in industry, government, and teaching-intensive professional jobs. Trainees will develop dynamic interdisciplinary and professional skills to catalyze innovation in materials research, such as new drug delivery methods and personalized health monitoring devices. The research theme of applying polymeric materials to technical challenges in the life sciences will serve as the basis for meaningful interdisciplinary collaboration. The research theme, from which collaborative research projects will spring, will feature two primary concentrations: Engineering Immunological Soft Materials (enabling immunologists to collaborate with polymer specialists) and Materials for Sensor Monitoring (supporting collaborations between engineers and polymer scientists). A goal of the training program is to build T-shaped skills, in which the vertical bar on the "T" represents the depth of related skills and expertise in a single field, and the horizontal bar is the ability to collaborate across disciplines with experts in other areas and to apply knowledge in areas of expertise other than one's own. The program will feature an intensive "Year Two Experience" that combines an interdisciplinary course in technical topics related to the research theme, professional development workshops and training activities, and interdisciplinary lab modules. Students who complete all requirements will earn a graduate certificate in Soft Materials for Life Sciences. Connections to industry, facilitated by the Institute for Applied Life Sciences, will benefit the trainees and strengthen the broader science ecosystem. The project outcomes will be a demonstrated, well-evaluated model for transformative graduate training that is effective in developing T-shaped professionals. A science-of-science study conducted throughout the NRT project will explore the dynamics and efficacy of interdisciplinary collaboration by students in this program. The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new, potentially transformative, and scalable models for STEM graduate education training. The Traineeship Track is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary research areas, through the comprehensive traineeship model that is innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs.