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The DEBI RCN funds graduate student exchanges to facilitate collaborations
among deep biosphere research groups, with the end goal of building
and educating the community. Students exchanges will:
- Establish direct links between two groups or labs;
- Expand the students' scientific "toolbox" within
this diverse and interdisciplinary field;
- Build a well-connected future community of deep-biosphere
researchers and leaders.
Program
Students will spend 1-6 months in a participating RCN host lab
to carry out key experiments, use specialized analytical equipment,
learn new modeling approaches, or join a research cruise –
research activities that may be prohibitively difficult or impossible
at their home institutions. For example, a student working in
a molecular microbiology lab might require lipid biomarker analyses
in his/her thesis work and join a participating organic geochemistry
lab for several months. Or a student in theoretical geochemistry
might want to test predictions and models with field samples obtained
or in situ experiments carried out on a research cruise.
RCN members from a variety of fields have already expressed interest
in hosting exchange students. The table below gives an overview
of RCN members, their disciplines, and specific research techniques
or approaches they can offer guest students. However, students
are encouraged to develop exchange collaborations with any appropriate
lab group.
Example RCN members and
expertise for student exchanges. Note: These will change
with the growth of this community and are representative
examples only.
Requirements
Financial support for student exchanges through the RCN will
be ~50% of the total cost. Matching funds that students are required
to leverage include supervisor grant monies, a travel award from
any program that supports student awards in this way (e.g., Geological
Society of America, NASA Lewis and Clark fellowships), or other
means. Between 2-4 awards of $1-3K each will be granted annually.
Recipients of the student exchange awards will be required to
present their findings at the subsequent annual RCN meeting and/or
the synthesis meeting at Washington University. In addition, they
will prepare a short summary of their exchange experience for
the RCN website. Acknowledgement of RCN support is expected in
all associated oral and poster presentations and publications.
Application
A complete application consists of:
- Cover page (PDF
form)
- Research proposal (2 pages) outlining the intended objective
and outcome of a research exchange
- Budget (1 page) outlining expected costs of the exchange
as well as other sources of funds which will be used to
support the exchange
- Confirmation of financial commitment of match
- CV
- Two letters of recommendation, one of which must come
from the student's main advisor
- Letter of support from the advisor at the hosting institution
- Letter of support from the director or senior program
administrator of the student's home program which acknowledges
the student's absence from the home institution
Student applications are managed by the DEBI RCN program
office and reviewed by the steering and executive committees.
This is a rolling call.
Submissions
Please submit your proposal by email to C-DEBI at submissions@darkenergybiosphere.org
to the attention of:
Rosalynn
Lee Sylvan
Associate Managing Director
Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations (C-DEBI)
Email: rosalyyl@usc.edu
> What graduate student research exchange projects have
been funded?
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