My Community, Our Earth: Fellowships for Geospatial Technologies and Biodiversity in Africa

美国地理学家协会(AAG)将支持从美国大学中竞争性挑选的四名学生参加，他们将与非洲的同行学生及其导师组成的跨学科团队进行密集的合作。团队将探索如何将地理技术和专业知识应用于当地和地区的生物多样性挑战。拟议的活动建立在AAG在非洲运营的两个重要新计划的基础上：由AAG管理的非洲科学家能力建设计划，由美国国际开发署/NASA提供资金；以及与非洲对应机构的合作，得到美国国务院在地球空间技术促进可持续发展计划下的支持。该项目将允许一批本科生和研究生研究人员通过参与目前不支持美国广泛参与的项目，在地理技术和生物多样性方面获得有意义的国际研究和合作经验。学生将获得指导支持、旅费、生活费和津贴，以便参加在肯尼亚内罗毕举行的培训研讨会，与非洲学生指导团队进行为期三个月的研究活动，以及在一年的课程中进行持续的虚拟协作。地理信息科学与其他社会经济现象的复杂关系、日益密集的数据和空间清晰的性质、对地理参考生物数据的新兴数字访问以及新的软件工具和服务为生态分析、预测建模和合成创造了新的研究机会，在应对生物多样性保护挑战方面提供了一套有价值的技术、方法和视角，证明了这一点。非洲地理信息科学促进可持续发展和确定基本地理空间数据集的状况显示，迫切需要更广泛的教育和专业发展合作，包括事件和网络，帮助加强地理空间社区将这些数据集转化为知识的能力。这一拟议的项目旨在支持NSF OISES的使命，即在与其他国家，特别是发展中国家的研究项目建立联系方面，培养全球科学家和工程师，这些国家的对应资源通常很稀缺。该计划将通过让美国研究生和本科生有机会获得早期职业生涯国际专业经验，为新的科学家和工程师提供支持。该计划将广泛传播研讨会材料和项目成果。团队项目报告和白皮书将成为其他研究产品的基础，包括将通过国际场所传播的会议展览和摘要出版物，包括2009-2010年在联合国(纽约)、非洲地理信息系统(乌干达)和AAG(华盛顿特区)会议上的会议。该项目由国际科学和工程办公室通过AGER(探索性研究早期概念赠款)机制提供支持。

The Association of American Geographers (AAG) will support the participation of four students competitively selected from US universities to engage in intensive collaboration with interdisciplinary teams of counterpart students and their mentors in Africa. Teams will explore how geographic technologies and expertise may be applied to local and regional biodiversity challenges. The proposed activities build upon two important new AAG-run programs within Africa: a capacity building program for African scientists managed by AAG with funding from USAID/NASA and collaboration with African counterpart institutions receiving support from the US State Department under the Geospatial Technologies for Sustainable Development program. The project will permit a cohort of undergraduate and graduate researchers to acquire meaningful international research and collaboration experiences in geographic technologies and biodiversity through participation in programs that currently do not support wide US participation. Students will receive mentoring support, travel, living expenses, and stipends to attend a training workshop in Nairobi, Kenya, a three-month research activity with African student mentor teams, and ongoing virtual collaborations over the course of one year.Intellectual Merit. Geographic Information Science (GISc) provides a valuable set of technologies, methods and perspectives of demonstrated utility in addressing challenges to biodiversity conservation within the context of its complex relationship to other socio-economic phenomena, its increasingly data intensive and spatially explicit nature, and emerging digital access to georeferenced biological data as well as new software tools and services that create novel research opportunities for ecological analysis, predictive modeling, and synthesis.The AAG?s assessment on the state of GIScience for sustainable development and the identification of fundamental geospatial datasets in Africa reveals a strong need for more extensive educational and professional development collaborations, including both events and networks, among US and African institutions to help strengthen the capacity of the geospatial community to transform these datasets into knowledge.Broader Impacts. This proposed project seeks to support NSF OISEs mission to develop global scientists and engineers in terms of linkages to research programs of other countries, particularly developing countries, where often counterpart resources are typically scarce. The program will provide support for new scientists and engineers by involving US graduate and undergraduate students with opportunities to gain early career international professional experience. The program will disseminate workshop materials and project results broadly. Team project reports and white papers will form the basis for additional research products, including conference exhibits and summary publications to be disseminated via international venues, including at United Nations (New York), AfricaGIS (Uganda), and AAG (Washington, DC) conferences in 2009-2010.This project is supported by the Office of International Science and Engineering through the EAGER (EArly-concept Grants for Exploratory Research) mechanism.