The FAU Environmental Sciences Program is pleased to announce the creation of the FAU Environmental Sciences Everglades Fellowship Initiative. The fellowship initiative is funded with $500,000 for two years by the National Park Service to facilitate restoration of the Everglades ecosystem. The new research focus of the Environmental Sciences Program, the Greater Everglades Research Initiative, targets water issues and fits nicely with the intent of the fellowship initiative.
The main objectives are to:
- Produce high quality publishable scientific papers that provide guidance for the restoration of the Everglades ecosystem.
- Provide support and training for outstanding fellows to conduct research that is pertinent to the science, management, or policy needs of National Park Service or other U.S. Department of Interior agencies in South Florida.
- Foster synergistic collaborations among faculty and students in the FAU Environmental Sciences Program and staff at the National Park Service.
This program is ideally suited to the analysis of existing data because of the short duration of the support. Note that the work must be relevant to the restoration of the greater Everglades ecosystem; however, it can be done on any Department of Interior lands in South Florida. These lands make up Everglades National Park, Big Cypress National Preserve, Biscayne National Park, Dry Tortugas National Park, and the A.R.M. Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge.
The funds will be given out as grants to individual FAU faculty for support up to May 2011 for a MS student, PhD student, or Postdoctoral Research Associate. Undergraduate interns will be funded on an annual basis. The annual stipend for fellows varies by position: $40,000 for a post doc, $20,000 for a Ph.D. student, and $12,000 for a MS student. Each fellowship also comes with support of about $7,000 for travel, supplies, and a computer in year one and $4,000 in year two. Tuition costs are also included in the award.
As a requirement of the award, faculty will produce every 6 months a summary report of activities and findings. In addition, they must produce a final report that includes a high quality technical paper suitable for submission to a scientific journal. Any products not included in a report, such as GIS-based decision support tools, contributions to simulation computer modeling efforts, or presentation of scientific findings as posters or conference abstracts should also be provided. Any data collected or generated by the project should be submitted in digital format following the Everglades National Park Research Data Reporting Requirements for data and metadata. These Data Reporting Requirements are onlined at http://www.nps.gov/ever/naturescience/researchdatareporting.htm
Student interns supported by this program will be required to submit in place of a journal manuscript, a 5-10 page report on their internship. The report should be in the format of a basic scientific research paper, including Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion, and Literature Cited.
The faculty who received awards are:
Dr. John Baldwin, Department of Biological Sciences, “Evaluation of Bald Eagle Population Dynamics and Foraging Ecology: Current and Historical Trends in Florida Bay and the Southern Estuaries of Everglades National Park”
Dr. Xavier Comas-Quiros, Department of Geosciences, “Multi-Scale Characterization of Dissolution Structures and Porosity Distribution in the Upper Part of the Biscayne Aquifer Using Non-Invasive Electromagnetic Methods”
Dr. Marguerite Koch-Rose, Department of Biological Sciences, “Everglades’ Restoration and Climate Change Effects on Submerged Aquatic Vegetation at the Florida Bay Transition Zones in Support of Landscape/Ecosystem Models”
Dr. Scott Markwith, Department of Geosciences, “Hydrochory Analysis in the Greater Everglades Ridge and Slough Ecosystem: Decompartmentalization and Sheet Flow Enhancement’s Potential to Restore Ecological Connectivity and Species Composition”
Dr. Diana Mitsova, School of Urban and Regional Planning, “Seasonal Flushing of Oil and Grease from Urban Runoff to the Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserve”
Dr. Zhixiao Xie, Department of Geosciences, “Develop a Fine Resolution DEM to Support Hydrological Modeling and Ecological Study in the Everglades”
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
The FAU Environmental Sciences Program is pleased to announce, in cooperation with FAU Chemistry Department, that current and prospective Environmental Sciences students are now eligible to apply to the GK 12 ChemBOND Fellowship Program at FAU. Fellows work in collaboration with, and have the opportunity to act as a resource to, K-12 teachers. Since graduate fellows are expected to share their research expertise with high school teachers and students, graduate fellows must have research experience and so will normally be second year graduate students already in our program or new students coming in to the Program with research experience. If selected, graduate students would spend 10 hours/week in a classroom working with instructors and students. They would receive a $30,000/year stipend plus travel, tuition waiver, and health insurance. See the link for more details http://www.science.fau.edu/chemistry/GK12. The deadline for applications was March 9.
Smithsonian Marine Station Graduate Fellowship
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
The Florida Chapter of the Wildlife Society
Greater Everglades Student Memorial Scholarship
The Florida Chapter of The Wildlife Society, in conjunction with the Florida Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation and the Florida Wildlife Federation, is sponsoring a scholarship for undergraduate students who will be Juniors or Seniors during the 2009-2010 academic year. This year one $2,000 scholarship will awarded.
Full Announcement
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
Recovery Act Funding for New Graduate Fellowships in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering