U.S.-Australia Summer Research Institute in Tropical Australia

9900386SHEPHERD该奖项支持在澳大利亚建立夏季研究所，从1999年开始，到2003年每隔一年运行一次。该项目源于1998年美国国家科学基金会东亚和太平洋项目支持的一个成功的试点项目，通过该项目，新墨西哥大学（UNM）的12名本科生和2名研究生在澳大利亚进行了一个月的热带生态学研究。该项目将为不同的学生群体提供一个独特的机会，在学习实地研究和项目设计基础的同时，获得关于戈德瓦纳祖先的动植物的广泛知识。在澳大利亚的教育和研究经历将在每个交替的夏天持续四周多一点，在新墨西哥大学生物系和各种澳大利亚主办团体的支持下，与新墨西哥大学的一般荣誉部门共同组织，包括联邦科学和工业研究组织，以及澳大利亚博物馆在蜥蜴岛的研究站。这些学生将与澳大利亚的科学研究人员和保护组织以及新墨西哥大学的教师直接合作。他们将在澳大利亚热带和亚热带的几个生物群落中进行生态学和生物多样性研究的小型短期研究项目。在课程结束时，每个学生都将准备在一个更独立的环境中工作，将获得一个野外生物学家的基本技能，并将进行一个研究项目从设计到书面和口头报告的所有方式。

9900386SHEPHERD This award supports the establishment of a Summer Research Institute in Australia commencing in 1999 and running in alternate years through 2003. This project grew out of a successful pilot project supported by the NSF East Asia and Pacific Program in 1998 through which twelve undergraduates and two graduate students from the University of New Mexico (UNM) spent a month in Australia engaged in research related to tropical ecology. The program will provide a diverse group of students a unique opportunity to acquire extensive knowledge of a flora and fauna of Godwanan ancestry while learning the fundamentals of field research and project design. The educational and research experience in Australia will last for just over four weeks in each alternate summer and is organized in conjunction with the University of New Mexico's General Honors Division with support from UNM's Department of Biology and a variety of Australian host groups, including the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, and the Australian Museum's Research Station at Lizard Island. The students will work in direct association with scientific researchers and conservation organizations in Australia, as well as faculty from UNM. They will conduct small, short-term research projects in ecology and biodiversity studies while traveling through several biomes of tropical and subtropical Australia. By the end of the program, each student will be prepared to work in a more independent setting, will have acquired the basic skills of a field biologist, and will have carried a research project all the way from design to both a written and oral presentation.