NRT-HDR: A team-based training paradigm integrating informatics and ecology

NRT-HDR：融合信息学和生态学的团队训练范式

• 批准号: 1829075
• 负责人: Kiona Ogle
• 金额: $ 289.91万
• 依托单位: Northern Arizona University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-09-01 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1829075&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NRT; HDR; team; based; training

Earth's deserts, tropical forests, and other ecosystems, natural or managed, provide valuable goods and services to society. These ecosystems, however, are threatened by extreme weather events, changes in land use, habitat fragmentation, and species loss. The expertise to understand the impacts of such threats will require teams who collectively bring to bear modern methods in ecology, data and information processing, computing, statistics, and mathematical modeling. However, such team-based, scientific approaches are rare in formal graduate education programs. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award to Northern Arizona University will address these challenges by developing a team-based graduate training program in ecological and environmental informatics, with a focus on team-based research combined with the development of strong expert and public communication skills and modern collaborative skills broadly applicable beyond academia. The project anticipates training forty-eight (48) PhD students, including twenty-four (24) funded trainees, with an additional 100 graduate students (MS and PhD) benefiting from various aspects of the NRT training program.This NRT training program is couched in the interdisciplinary research theme of understanding and forecasting the properties and processes of terrestrial ecosystems, especially the impact of and feedbacks to global change. The field is being flooded with data (e.g., from various ecological and Earth observatory networks) that are critical to understanding and forecasting terrestrial ecosystem responses. However, most graduate students and scientists lack the quantitative, computational, and collaborative skills to leverage such data to address grand, challenging questions. This NRT program will train the next generation of scientists to overcome these limitations, with a focus on training in informatics tools and team-science skills that facilitate solutions to complex problems, motivated by the question: How does anthropogenic global change affect the health and productivity of terrestrial ecosystems? In this innovative graduate training program, trainees will create their own scientist profile in ecological and environmental informatics by building substantive depth in a primary core competency and establishing breadth in other primary and supporting areas. The primary areas include data analytics and computing, analysis and synthesis, and terrestrial ecosystem science; the supporting areas include relevant data collection tools and products as well as skillsets in communication, collaboration, and team building. Key elements of this NRT program are scalable and sustainable, including: (1) a curriculum that allows students to personalize their training, (2) workshops, courses, and other activities that focus on team skills and applying these skills to collaborative research projects, (3) preparation for a range of careers via professional development and applied internship opportunities, and (4) the graduate ecological and environmental informatics certificate that is accessible to students in a range of STEM fields. 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 program 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.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

地球上的沙漠、热带森林和其他生态系统，无论是天然的还是人工管理的，都为社会提供了宝贵的商品和服务。然而，这些生态系统受到极端天气事件、土地使用变化、生境破碎和物种丧失的威胁。了解这些威胁的影响的专业知识将需要团队共同承担生态学，数据和信息处理，计算，统计和数学建模的现代方法。然而，这种以团队为基础的科学方法在正式的研究生教育项目中很少见。这个国家科学基金会研究培训（NRT）奖给北方亚利桑那大学将通过开发生态和环境信息学的团队为基础的研究生培训计划，以解决这些挑战，重点是团队为基础的研究结合了强大的专家和公众沟通技能的发展，以及广泛适用于学术界以外的现代协作技能。该项目预计将培训四十八（48）名博士生，包括二十四（24）名受资助的受训人员，另有100名研究生（硕士和博士）受益于NRT培训计划的各个方面。这个NRT培训计划是在理解和预测陆地生态系统的属性和过程的跨学科研究主题，特别是全球变化的影响和反馈。该字段正被数据淹没（例如，这些信息来源于各种生态和地球观测网络，对于理解和预测陆地生态系统的反应至关重要。然而，大多数研究生和科学家缺乏定量、计算和协作技能，无法利用这些数据来解决重大的、具有挑战性的问题。该NRT计划将培养下一代科学家克服这些限制，重点是信息学工具和团队科学技能的培训，这些技能有助于解决复杂问题，其动机是：人为全球变化如何影响陆地生态系统的健康和生产力？在这个创新的研究生培训计划中，学员将通过在主要核心竞争力中建立实质性的深度并在其他主要和支持领域建立广度来创建自己的生态和环境信息学科学家形象。主要领域包括数据分析和计算、分析和综合以及陆地生态系统科学;支持领域包括相关数据收集工具和产品以及沟通、协作和团队建设方面的技能。该NRT计划的关键要素是可扩展和可持续的，包括：（1）允许学生个性化培训的课程，（2）专注于团队技能并将这些技能应用于合作研究项目的研讨会，课程和其他活动，（3）通过专业发展和应用实习机会为一系列职业做准备，以及（4）研究生生态和环境信息学证书，可供学生在一系列STEM领域。NSF研究培训（NRT）计划旨在鼓励为STEM研究生教育培训开发和实施大胆的，新的潜在变革模式。该计划致力于通过全面的培训模式，在高优先级的跨学科研究领域对STEM研究生进行有效培训，这些模式具有创新性，以证据为基础，并与不断变化的劳动力和研究需求保持一致。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。