Whitney Beck (ENSP - Soil, Water, and Land Resources, 2012) has won a National Science Foundation (NSF) IGERT Fellowship, which will fund two years of interdisciplinary graduate study at Colorado State University. The Fellowship includes combines support from NSF and CSU ($30k/year stipend plus coverage of tuition and fees) and will enable Whitney to work with graduate students from several academic departments on collaborative, interdisciplinary projects broadly related to freshwater resources.
Whitney writes "(My) advisor, Dr. LeRoy Poff, has significant expertise in the realm of "environmental flows," which are managed streamflow regimes (that attempt) to balance ecological water needs with human uses. My PhD research project will focus on benthic algae populations in freshwater streams, which are algae that attach to rocks, sediment, sand, etc. rather than floating freely. I am trying to better link water quantity and quality relationships by increasing our understanding of how algal uptake of nutrients (like nitrogen and phosphorus) might vary under different streamflow regimes, taking into account water magnitude, velocity, and seasonality." Whitney's work will involve both field- and laboratory-based research.
IGERT Fellowships are designed to foster interdisciplinary study at the graduate level; and the I-WATER program at Colorado State focuses specifically on water. ENSP students interested in interdisciplinary work like Whitney's need to keep these fellowship resources in mind when it comes time to apply to graduate school.
