Findings and Recommendations - Basic Research Opportunities in Earth Science - page 104

typically individual investigator grants. Although such training teaches students
important disciplinary skills, it can lack the cross-disciplinary components that
allow students to branch into new fields and gain the knowledge needed to pursue a
broad range of career opportunities. Better integration of education and research
in a multidisciplinary framework is needed to help students take advantage of new
research directions and employment options. Grants and fellowships that offer
this flexibility, such as those sponsored by NSF's Integrative Graduate Education
and Research Training (IGERT) Program, 29 are key to attracting and retaining
the best students. A plausible strategy for encouraging broad-based training is for
EAR to establish a program of research training grants, either on its own or with
other science divisions, to provide undergraduates and graduate students with
access to alternative research environments. 30 Training grants available through
other NSF divisions could serve as models for an EAR program.
Recommendation. EAR should institute training grants and expand its
fellowship program to facilitate broad-based education for undergraduate
and graduate students in the Earth sciences.
Earth scientists who have just begun their careers (i.e., postdoctoral
researchers), as well as those who are already established (i.e., professors), need
help in bridging their research to other disciplines. For example, researchers with
adequate backgrounds in both biology and the Earth sciences are needed to
advance the field of geobiology. Similar training across disciplinary lines is
required for study of the atmosphere-hydrosphere-lithosphere-pedosphere
interactions that govern the long-term behavior of the Earth's climate, the
problems of comparative planetology, and many of the other science
opportunities discussed in this report. Plausible mechanisms for these purposes
involve the postdoctoral training of young scientists and sabbatical-leave
opportunities for established academic scientists.
Recommendation. EAR should establish postdoctoral and sabbatical-leave
training programs to facilitate development of the cross-disciplinary
expertise needed to exploit research oppor
29 The NSF-wide IGERT program was initiated in 1997 to encourage the development
of multidisciplinary curricula in doctoral-level education; see http://www.nsf.gov/igert .
30 As envisaged in the workshop report Geoscience Education, such training programs
would prepare students for non-academic jobs by offering internships with industry,
museums, nonprofit organizations, or government agencies, or for nontraditional research
positions by offering fellowships that span multiple programs, disciplines, or institutions.