PIRE Collaborative Research and Training in Social Context, Population Processes, and Environmental Change
This new interdisciplinary multi-site program is designed to train the next generation of scientists to conduct the international collaborative research needed to address important issues of global environmental change. The training program builds on two of the country's leading programs of research on human-environment interaction in Asia, each more than a decade old - one at the Univ. of Michigan based in the social sciences and one at Michigan State Univ. based in the ecological sciences. Under the leadership of two former NSF Young Investigator/CAREER Award winners (Axinn: Sociology, Michigan, PI; and Liu: Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State, Co-PI), this program will draw together trainees from five major US universities (Univ. of Michigan, Michigan State Univ., Univ. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Arizona State Univ. and San Diego State Univ.) to learn the concepts and methods needed to bridge key disciplines and foster intensive international collaborations. Scientists from multiple partner institutions in Nepal and China will provide expertise in South Asian and Chinese biodiversity, wildlife habitat, land use change, botanical change, remote sensing, agricultural practices, population changes, and social context. We chose these two sites specifically because the large populations, rapidly changing economies, diverse ecologies and complex institutional structures of South Asia and China provide tremendous research and educational opportunities. Training will focus on research methods needed to advance the study of human-environment interactions in multiple international settings, including survey research, mixed method data collection, biodiversity measurement, habitat fragmentation and change, botany, land use, remote sensing, geographic information analysis, multivariate statistical modeling (particularly multilevel modeling and event history analysis), and agent-based modeling. The program builds directly on existing training programs at the five US Universities, adding an annual two-week intensive workshop in Michigan, travel to research and training sites in Nepal and China by US faculty and students, short-term visits to US training sites by Asian collaborators, and modest related research activities. These investments at multiple sites will effectively promote outstanding international collaborative research and education because they build upon: 1) exceptional interdisciplinary training programs already operating at our five US universities; and 2) well-established, long-term programs of research on human-environment interactions in Nepal and China. Specifically, our training program will take US social and ecological scientists to Nepal and China to become directly involved in two state of the art studies of human-environment interactions. Both of these research projects have been supported by various funding sources, including NSF and NIH, for over ten years, and have accumulated substantial track records of international collaboration, data collection and research productivity. The significant new data now available from these projects constitute a tremendous resource for new trainees. The proposed training program will advance the science of these projects by building an explicitly comparative dimension, and will aid US junior scientists in launching successful internationally collaborative research programs. Our focus on Asia is motivated by ecological diversity, serious environmental challenges, rapid rates of social change and population growth, and key human-environment interactions, all of which are embodied in our two research sites. We will train a number of junior faculty members, post-doctoral fellows, PhD candidates, and advanced undergraduates from each of the affiliated US universities. Trainees will be selected from among the most successful in existing training programs at each site, emphasizing recruitment of under-represented minorities and women. Each trainee will attend intensive workshops at Michigan that will feature education in social research methods led by Michigan faculty and education in ecological research methods led by Michigan State faculty. These workshops will function to educate trainees in project and setting-specific concepts, measures, and methods as well as to promote interdisciplinary and international exchange and comparison. Then each trainee will make a lengthy visit to Nepal, China, or both, to collaborate on research projects at those sites and receive setting-specific hands-on training in social and ecological research methods. Each US trainee will be paired with a collaborating scientist from Nepal or China in a complimentary field to address important scientific questions. Collaborating scientists will make short-term visits to the US training sites on an annual basis to launch and sustain research partnerships with US trainees. Program directors Axinn and Liu will coordinate trainee involvement in ongoing research activities at these sites, preparation and publication of scholarly articles based on this collaborative training, and the development of proposals for new international collaborative research projects among trainees. The goals of this program build directly on the institutional goals of each cooperating organization, helping to build their own institutional capacity.
Principal Investigator: Lisa D. Pearce
CPC Fellow Investigator:
Funding Source: NIH/NIDA via University of Colorado at Boulder Subcontract
Funding Period: 10/1/2007 - 9/30/2012
Related CPC Signature Theme:
