The training will help graduate students and advisors set expectations for graduate education and introduce students to basic concepts in responsible conduct for research.

Volunteers will help facilitate discussion at a table with six or seven new graduate students.  The discussion will center around two vignettes that depict typical graduate student and faculty interactions.  Volunteers will participate in one training sessions offered the week of January 5th.

Orientation begins at 9am on Friday, January 8th.

Please register online if you would like to volunteer.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation e-mail with the locations for the training and orientation, along with reminders as we get closer to the event.

Please contact Debra Charlesworth with any questions about orientation.

Please register so we can plan for your arrival!

In addition to the orientation session sponsored by the Graduate School, students may also be required to attend sessions sponsored by:

• their graduate program (contact programs for details)
• the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Faculty Development
• International Programs and Services

Questions about Graduate School orientation may be directed to Debra Charlesworth or Carol Wingerson.

• Graduate Students
• U.S. Citizen or Permanent Resident Alien
• Up to $3000
• February 15, 2010 Deadline
• Research preference for cold water salmonids rather than those related to andromous species

Please contact Jodi Lehman (jglehman@mtu.edu) if interested in applying.

• AGEP:

programs offer minority students support in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields.

• GK-12:

The NSF Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12) Program supports fellowships and training for graduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

• IGERT:

fellowship programs offer a $30,000 stipend plus tuition and fees. Over 100 programs nationwide emphasize interdisciplinary studies in science, technology, mathematics, and engineering.

• MSPHDS:

The Minorities Striving and Pursuing Higher Degrees of Success (MSPHDS) in Earth System Science initiative was developed by and for underrepresented minorities with the overall purpose of facilitating increased participation in Earth system science.

• NSF Grad Research Fellowships:

provides students with three years of funding for research-focused Master’s and PhD degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields.

For additional information please visit: http://www.pathwaystoscience.org/Grad.asp

Pathways to Science

About Summer Research
Many organizations fund a research opportunities for undergraduate students (National Science Foundation programs are called ‘REUs’, Research Experience for Undergraduates’). The programs usually consist of a group of ten undergraduates who work in the research programs of the host institution. Each student works closely with the faculty and other researchers. Students are given stipends and, in many cases, assistance with housing and travel.

You must apply to each individual site or program to be considered for acceptance into these programs.

Check out the over 400 programs:

Undergraduate REU and Other Summer Research Opportunities

Summer research experiences are important if you are considering graduate school or will be applying for external funding opportunities.  If you have questions, contact Jodi Lehman (jglehman@mtu.edu)

Since mid-July, Michigan Tech students, staff and faculty have had a state-of-the-art way to practice their oral presentations: project them on a large-screen monitor in a study room in the Van Pelt and Opie Library. Large-screen monitors (42 inches) have been installed in rooms 302 and 303, two of the larger study rooms on the third floor of the library.

The monitors, which can easily be connected to a laptop computer, are open to all. The rooms may be reserved at the circulation desk or through Zimbra.

The technology was purchased with funding from the Friends of the Van Pelt Library, which obtains funding from donations and proceeds from its book sale. The next Friends Book Sale is April 9, 2010, with a presale for members on April 8. To become a member, make a donation at: www.lib.mtu.edu/friends/friends.htm .

“The students were asking for this, and when we proposed it to the Friends, they agreed to support it right away,” says interim Library Director Ellen Seidel.

Suggestions for the library can be sent to: reflib@mtu.edu .

For more information

Michigan Tech News

November 16, 2009—

Conservation could be Amber Roth’s middle name. She loves anything to do with nature. Birds, trees, grasses, ecosystems: she’s fascinated by it all.

So after tucking a Bachelor of Science in Conservation Biology and International Relations and a Master of Science in Wildlife Ecology under her belt, the Green Bay native came to Michigan Tech to earn a PhD in the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science (SFRES).

Roth studies how to manage aspen forests to produce the maximum amount of biomass per acre without harming wildlife habitat. “It’s a management trade-off question,” she explains, and the basis of her PhD research

But Roth was raised by a devoted bird-watcher, and a tiny songbird that is facing hard times has also captured her heart. She has become an active member of the Golden-winged Warbler Working Group, an international conservation organization that spans two continents.

Weighing only 9 grams (equal to 4 dimes), the golden-winged warbler incredibly flies thousands of miles twice a year, migrating from its breeding grounds in the northern Midwest to its winter home in Central and South America.  The tiny bird makes the long migration 6 to 10 times in a lifetime.

Its fuel efficiency is the equivalent of several hundred thousand miles per gallon,” Roth says with a smile.

But the far-flying warbler is in trouble. There used to be as many as half a million of the birds, and now there are fewer than 200,000. “Its numbers are declining sharply, and we don’t know why. We don’t know where the patient is bleeding,” says Roth.

The Golden-Winged Warbler Working Group got a small grant from the US Fish and Wildlife Service to try to determine what’s happening to the bird. Their research is a collaborative effort involving American, Canadian and Latin American scientists.

Some of the researchers are examining the bird’s genetics, to locate genetically pure populations. Only one has been found so far, in Manitoba, Canada. Others are studying the biochemical signature in the golden-winged warbler’s feathers, which can reveal where the young birds go after their first migration. And a third group is working to connect where the birds winter in Central and South America to where they breed.

It’s a real skin-and-bones project,” says Roth. But money isn’t the only resource the researchers need.

Michigan Tech has contributed 21 mist nets—fine nylon nets used to safely capture birds for study before releasing them.  “These are older, damaged nets that I have in my lab, and the Latin American scientists know people who can repair them so that they can be reused,” SFRES associate professor David Flaspohler explains. Flaspohler is one of Roth’s PhD advisors, the other being Chris Webster.

If the nets were purchased new, they would cost as much as $100 each.

Like most of the other things she’s ever done, Roth says her work with the Golden-winged Warbler Working Group is helping prepare her for her dream career.  With work experience in the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and her PhD from Michigan Tech, she’s looking forward to climbing what she calls her “career triangle”—comprising research, education and conservation management.  “I like being involved in all three,” she says, “the research, the outreach, and the management on the ground.”

The HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Society of North America Fellowship Program is designed to prepare Muslim graduate students to become effective and knowledgeable leaders of nonprofit organizations in North America.

Fellows will be given the opportunity to study nonprofit management, fundraising, capacity development, and other relevant subjects. These courses will be offered at the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy or other similar institutions of higher education and centers of philanthropic studies.

Visit site for more information: http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/rfp/rfp_item.jhtml?id=272700027

We’re looking for 30 students in science, technology, engineering and math fields to participate in an on-line course that will be interactive and dynamic.  You will learn more about these important aspects of responsible conduct for research, collaborate with students online with a wiki and blog, and evaluate a new way of teaching these concepts.  Visit:

http://www.mtu.edu/gradschool/admissions/orientation/rcr/ip.html

to learn more.  Register online today to reserve your spot:

http://www.gradschool2.mtu.edu/registration/events/