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

地球上的沙漠、热带雨林和其他生态系统，无论是自然的还是管理的，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、土地利用变化、栖息地碎片化和物种丧失的威胁。理解此类威胁的影响的专业知识将需要团队共同运用生态学、数据和信息处理、计算、统计和数学建模方面的现代方法。然而，这种以团队为基础的科学方法在正规的研究生教育项目中很少见。这项授予北亚利桑那大学的国家科学基金会研究培训(NRT)奖将通过开发一个以团队为基础的生态和环境信息学研究生培训计划来应对这些挑战，重点是基于团队的研究，以及开发强大的专家和公共沟通技能以及广泛适用于学术界以外的现代合作技能。该项目预计培训四十八(48)名博士生，其中包括二十四(24)名资助的受训者，另外还有100名研究生(硕士和博士)受益于NRT培训计划的各个方面。该NRT培训计划体现在理解和预测陆地生态系统的特性和过程，特别是对全球变化的影响和反馈的跨学科研究主题中。该领域正在充斥着对理解和预测陆地生态系统反应至关重要的数据(例如，来自各种生态和地球观测网络的数据)。然而，大多数研究生和科学家缺乏量化、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计划将培训下一代科学家以克服这些限制，重点是培训信息学工具和团队科学技能，以促进复杂问题的解决，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？在这一创新的研究生培训计划中，学员将通过在主要核心能力方面建立实质性的深度，并在其他主要和支持领域建立广度，来创建自己在生态和环境信息学方面的科学家形象。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通信、协作和团队建设方面的技能。NRT计划的主要内容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)侧重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)一系列STEM领域的学生可以获得的研究生生态和环境信息学证书。NSF研究培训(NRT)计划旨在鼓励开发和实施大胆的、具有潜在变革意义的STEM研究生教育培训模式。该计划致力于通过创新的、基于证据的、与不断变化的劳动力和研究需求保持一致的综合实习生模式，在高度优先的跨学科研究领域对STEM研究生进行有效培训。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.