NRT-DESE: NRT in Integrated Computational Entomology (NICE)

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This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award to the University of California, Riverside (UCR) will enable a team of investigators from Computer Science/Engineering and Entomology/Life Sciences to prepare the next generation of scientists and engineers to exploit the unreasonable effectiveness of data to understand insects by integrating the disciplines of computer science and entomological biology. The NRT in Integrated Computational Entomology (NICE) will train students to be at the forefront of science in computing for biological domains, providing biological scientists a foundation in computing techniques and engineers an understanding of critical entomological and ecological issues. The project anticipates training at least forty (40) MS and PhD students, including twenty (20) funded PhD trainees from the life sciences, computer science and engineering. The project will be the first program of its kind, anywhere in the world, and will meet high standards for innovation while offering a structure for demanding training in entomology/life sciences integrated with computational techniques in machine learning, data mining, and statistics. The NICE program recognizes and advances Computational Entomology as an emerging interdisciplinary field. Computational Entomology as a discipline recognizes that entomological and ecological problems generate enormous amounts of data, and that fully exploiting this data will require individuals whose knowledge spans two otherwise disparate fields. The training and research structure of the proposed project seeks to bridge large gaps in training, language, approach, perspective and knowledge that continue to divide the engineering/informatics and life sciences disciplines. Through coursework and joint projects with government agencies and companies, trainees will experience the translation of research outcomes into implemented public policy or agricultural/medical products and services. This project will scale to include graduate student trainees at UCR receiving NRT support and those not receiving funding, and will be sustainable at UCR as the new curriculum will become incorporated across the participating departments and degree programs. This project will also serve as a replicable Computational Entomology education and training model for other institutions. The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new potentially transformative 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.