NRT: Transformative Research in Urban Sustainability Training (T-RUST)

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Changing industrial landscapes can lead to unique socioeconomic challenges in an urban environment. For example, aging infrastructure and a decline in manufacturing activity can leave cities with abandoned industrial sites, polluted environments and declining populations. A shift to a technology-based economy with a more STEM-focused workforce may be one solution for sustainable cities. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship award to Wayne State University will train graduate master's and doctoral students to work with communities, businesses, industries, scientists, and policy makers to address challenges faced in postindustrial urban settings and prepare them for public, private, and academic leadership positions. This traineeship will take an interdisciplinary approach integrating science, engineering, policy, economics and communication. Altogether, this program will provide a unique and comprehensive training and educational opportunity for one hundred twenty-two (122) students, including fifteen (15) NSF-funded trainees, seven (7) additional graduate students, and 100 undergraduate students, who will have the training to solve national urban needs of sustainable future cities. Trainees will gain unique technical and professional training using an interdisciplinary systems approach. Education, research and practice will be integrated across disciplines through partnerships with entrepreneurial technology business and community based programs that are innovating in the reinvention of urban areas. The research will feature three complementary concentrations: Urban Ecological Systems; Urban Redevelopment and the Blue Economy; and Sustainable Urban Water Infrastructure. Trainees will learn how to apply systems analysis tools to evaluate natural and engineered urban environmental systems while evaluating and communicating policy and management options related to particularly challenging environmental problems that the physical sciences alone cannot resolve. The goal is to move beyond the constraints of narrow specialization and instead prepare holistically trained, interdisciplinary scientists/engineers who can solve today's complex problems. A second goal is to increase underrepresented minorities in STEM research and prepare them for public, private, and academic leadership positions where they can effectively address the complex issues of urban sustainability systems. In support of these goals, the program will include an interdisciplinary competency-based curriculum aligned with community environmental needs and labor market demands, integrated with: a dual-title doctoral degree; disciplinary, interdisciplinary and inter-institutional preparation that melds coursework; community project-based learning and service; seminar/colloquia; video documentaries; and internships. Internships will be identified with an External Advisory Panel to ensure they are responsive to specific environmental issues that have science, engineering, social justice, political, and economic dimensions.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 comprehensive traineeship models that are innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs.