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Description
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Most of today's scientific and social problems lie at the interface
of many disciplines. Urban ecology is an emerging field that addresses one of
the most challenging problems humanity is facing world wide: how to manage
metropolitan growth by simultaneously maximizing human well-being and minimizing impacts on ecosystems. These problems require interdisciplinary
approaches that current disciplinary doctoral education cannot teach.
The vision of this IGERT program is to change the culture of graduate education from a traditional enterprise focused on an individual's
discipline to one clearly emphasizing interdisciplinary teams. This will
increase student retention and prepare students for leadership within and
beyond academia. Team members' dissertations will include a common, co-authored section based on a real-world research problem addressed by
the team, plus an individually-written disciplinary section. Students will
be immersed immediately into interdisciplinary research questions, using
real-world problems presented to them by outside clients. Students from widely varied backgrounds will collectively analyze, evaluate, and propose
strategies to address those problems. Rather than provide a set course of
instruction before students begin research, the intent is to help teams decide what information and background they need as their analyses
progress, then arrange for the extended faculty to provide that background
(just-in-time education). The core curriculum assures that all students,
regardless of the projects they work on, receive essential skills and informational training. This requires team-taught courses where Urban
Ecology faculty members are in the classroom with the students at lectures
and discussion sessions, and where everyone participates.
By integrating research and education the IGERT program will build a
theoretical framework and a series of empirical studies that increase understanding of the complex mechanisms that mediate the interactions
between natural and human processes in urban ecosystems. This will produce
students experienced in solving real-world problems, improve working relationships between academia and business, regulatory, and urban
communities, and strengthen the foundation of Urban Ecology as a field.
RESEARCH THEMES
1. What socioeconomic factors drive urban development
2. How landscape ecology can be used to quantify urban development
patterns
3. How urban development patterns affect biodiversity and ecosystem
function
4. How changes in ecosystems affect human preferences and decisions
5. How policies influence human settlement and its effects.
PARTICIPANTS
The Urban Ecology Project includes faculty from a broad array of
departments as well as professionals in related fields. The level and
nature of their involvement can be broken into three general categories:
1) Core Faculty - maintain ongoing involvement in all aspects of the
project
2) Supporting Faculty - customize their classes for Urban Ecology
students, occasionally direct students and teams, and provide "just in
time" lectures
3) Planners, Policy Makers, and Managers - as practicing professionals, they will regularly interact with the Urban Ecology group, suggest
relevant research questions, provide "just-in-time" lectures, and sponsor
internships.
http://www.cfr.washington.edu/research.urbaneco
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