IGERT: EIGER - Exploring Interfaces through Graduate Education and Research

通过研究生教育和研究探索界面（EIGER）是IGERT计划，专注于应用于环境科学和工程的自然界面科学的新教学，学习和研究概念。 这些自然界面存在于地球、水圈、大气层和生物体的所有表面。 这门科学是高度跨学科的，因此EIGER还探索组成技术跨学科小组的人员之间复杂的人机界面，探索更好的方法来建立功能研究团队，以执行今天和未来的复杂研究议程。 该计划的智力价值和目标是培养第一批环境，地质，土壤和生物科学家和工程师，他们将在自然界面科学领域真正跨学科，并且也将在技术团队动态方面有所了解。 此外，EIGER在五大洲设有11个远程实验室，EIGER研究员将以两人一组的方式在其中两个地点进行研究，这是一个名为“配对实习”的独特项目。EIGER的更广泛的影响源于这样一个事实，即它将打破传统的研究生培训模式，直接从科学和工程的角度教授科学跨学科知识，并从人类心理学的角度教授技术团队合作。 沿着完整的专业发展计划，艾格将在一个对当今主要环境问题至关重要的复杂领域教育“整个学生”。 据设想，这种教育模式将有助于推动弗吉尼亚理工大学及其他院校的机构转型。IGERT是一个NSF范围内的计划，旨在满足教育美国博士的挑战。具有跨学科背景的科学家和工程师，在所选学科的深厚知识，以及未来职业需求所需的技术，专业和个人技能。该计划旨在通过建立创新的研究生教育和培训新模式，在超越传统学科界限的合作研究的肥沃环境中促进研究生教育的文化变革。

Exploring Interfaces through Graduate Education and Research (EIGER) is an IGERT program that focuses on new teaching, learning, and research concepts in natural interface science applied to environmental science and engineering. These natural interfaces exist on all surfaces within the Earth, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere, and living organisms. This science is highly interdisciplinary, so EIGER also explores the complex human interfaces among the people that make up technical, interdisciplinary groups, exploring better ways to build functional research teams to carry out the complex research agendas of today and the future. The intellectual merit and goal of the program is to train the first group of environmental, geological, soils, and biological scientists and engineers who will be truly interdisciplinary in the field of natural interface science, and who also will be knowledgeable in technical team dynamics. Further, EIGER includes 11 remote laboratory locations on five continents, and EIGER fellows, in teams of two, will spend research time at two of these sites in a unique program called "paired internships." EIGER's broader impact stems from the fact that it will break the mold of conventional graduate student training by directly teaching scientific interdisciplinarity from a science and engineering perspective, and technical teamwork from a human psychology perspective. Along with a full complement of professional development programs, EIGER will educate the "whole student" in a complex field vital to the leading environmental issues of the day. It is envisioned that this educational model will help drive an institutional transformation at Virginia Tech, and beyond. IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the interdisciplinary background, deep knowledge in a chosen discipline, and the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education by establishing innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries.