NRT-INFEWS: STEM Training for Actionable Research and Global Impact

这项授予加州大学伯克利分校的国家科学基金会研究培训(NRT)奖将通过缓解贫困和促进公平的视角，解决食品、能源和水系统(FEWS)之间的挑战。贫困社区经常面临获取营养食品、清洁可靠的能源和安全饮用水的极端挑战，这些挑战将随着未来气候变化、人口增长、基础设施压力和污染而放大。通过协作和身临其境的跨学科培训，研究生将开发新颖和持久的跨学科方法和技术，以解决FEWS挑战和减少贫困，并产生积极的全球影响。该项目将吸引400多名学生，最多80名学员，其中包括32名资助学员，来自工程、社会科学、环境科学、商业等领域。这一努力加强了美国在基础研究、人类能力建设和技术开发方面的领导地位，以满足世界各地的能源、水和食品获取需求，并带来积极的环境和经济可持续效益。该计划的研究主题是在空间和时间限制下解决食品、能源和水系统的设计、实施和协调方面的重大挑战。受训人员将研究以下主题：捕获和再利用有机废物产品中的营养物质和水；开发农业部门所需的小规模水和能源技术；开发基础设施和生命周期方法，以收集关于食品、能源和水系统的综合信息和数据。该计划将以人为中心的设计、创新的商业模式和技术进步与发展和持续影响分析的跨学科框架相结合，提供跨文化学习、原型和扩展，以及多利益相关者高效协作的新模式。STEM研究生教育模式强调身临其境的跨学科培训，以团队授课课程为特色，使用基于项目的实践学习方法，将技术学科的教师与商业/社会科学专业的教师配对。具体的培训内容包括：(1)跨学科研究活动和实地培训；(2)正规课程；(3)辅修FEWS专业；(4)创建FEWS硕士水平证书；(5)职业发展；(6)在线模块和工具；以及(7)项目效果的形成性评估和评估。受训者将掌握所需的跨学科技能，以创造可从实验室大规模转移到现场的可操作和有影响力的研究。这些技能将高度可转移到扶贫以外的环境中，并将为21世纪的劳动力发展做出贡献。NSF研究培训(NRT)计划旨在鼓励开发和实施大胆的、具有潜在变革性的STEM研究生教育培训模式。培训路径致力于通过创新的、基于证据的、与不断变化的劳动力和研究需求保持一致的综合培训模式，在高度优先的跨学科研究领域对STEM研究生进行有效培训。

This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award to the University of California at Berkeley will address challenges at the nexus of food, energy, and water systems (FEWS) through the lens of alleviating poverty and promoting equity. Poor communities often face extreme challenges accessing nutritious food, clean and reliable energy, and safe water, which will be amplified with additional climate variability, population growth, stress on infrastructures, and pollution in the future. Through collaborative and immersive interdisciplinary training, graduate students will develop novel and lasting interdisciplinary approaches and technologies for solving FEWS challenges and reducing poverty with positive global impact. The program will engage over 400 students with up to 80 trainees, including 32 funded trainees, from engineering, social sciences, environmental sciences, business, and beyond. This effort enhances US leadership in basic research, human capacity building, and technical development to meet energy, water, and food access needs worldwide with positive environmental and economic sustainability benefits.The research theme of this program addresses grand challenges in the design, implementation and coordination of food, energy and water systems within spatial and temporal constraints. Trainees will research topics such as capturing and reusing nutrients and water in organic waste products, development of small-scale water and energy technologies necessary for the agricultural sector and developing infrastructures and lifecycle methodologies to collect integrated information and data on food, energy, and water systems. Integrating human-centered design, innovative business models, and technological advancements with an interdisciplinary framework of development and continual impact analysis, this program provides cross-cultural learning, prototyping and scaling, and new models for productive multi-stakeholder collaboration. The model for STEM graduate education is one that emphasizes immersive interdisciplinary training, featuring team-taught courses that pair faculty in a technology discipline with one in business/social sciences using hands-on project-based learning approaches. Specific training components include: (1) interdisciplinary research activities and field training, (2) formal coursework, (3) creation of a FEWS concentration as a PhD minor, (4) creation of a FEWS masters' level certificate, (5) career development, (6) online modules & tools, and (7) formative assessment and evaluation of the program's effectiveness. Trainees will master the interdisciplinary skills needed to create actionable and impactful research that is transferable from the lab to the field at scale. These skills will be highly transferable to contexts beyond poverty alleviation and will contribute to 21st century workforce development. The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new potentially transformative 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.