On November 12th at the Van Brunt Visitors Center, the PPC and UNL celebrated the receipt of UNL's first Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship Program grant from the National Science Foundation. This five-year, $3.1 million grant will fund a new, multidisciplinary graduate program focused on resilience and adaptive governance in stressed watersheds. This collaborative program will integrate scientific, social, economic and legal aspects of managing complex water issues.
The new program will educate doctoral students from many disciplines to become the next generation of natural resource scientists, managers and policymakers. This grant fits well with our university's strategic goals for interdisciplinary research and education, and our commitment to be a leader in water research. More than 20 UNL faculty are collaborating on this new program. Craig Allen, professor of natural resources and leader of the Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, is the principal investigator; co-investigators are Sherilyn Fritz, geosciences professor; Ashok Samal, computer science professor; Alan Tomkins, Public Policy Center director and professor of psychology and law; and Andrew Tyre, associate professor of natural resources.