Newberry’s Fellowships in Humanities

Newberry Library

The Newberry’s fellowships support humanities research in their wide-ranging, rich, and sometimes eccentric library collections.  Long-term (six to eleven months with stipends of up to $50,400)  and short-term fellowships (one month with stipends of $1600) are available.

Long-term applications are due January 11, 2010

Short-term applications are due March 1, 2010

For more information visit http://www.newberry.org/research/felshp/fellowshome.html or contact Jodi Lehman at jglehman@mtu.edu.

Graduate School Holiday Closures

Due to University holidays and staff vacations, the Graduate School will be closed from December 24 – January 3.

The Graduate School will also be closed from 11:30am – 1:30pm on Friday, December 18th.

The Graduate School’s web page can provide assistance for many questions regarding:

Happy holidays and new year!

Facilitators sought for Graduate School Orientation

The Graduate School needs your help in welcoming our new graduate students and helping them successfully begin their career at Michigan Tech.  Faculty, staff and student volunteers are needed to facilitate discussion during orientation.  This is your opportunity to help enhance graduate education at Michigan Tech.

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 4th.

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.

Graduate School Orientation – January 8

Michigan Tech looks forward to welcoming our new graduate students for spring 2010. All new degree seeking students will be invited to orientation on January 8th beginning at 9am in the Memorial Union Ballroom. Registration and light snacks will be available beginning at 8:30am.

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:

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

Funding Opportunities in STEM Graduate Programs

Funding Opportunities in STEM Graduate Programs

• 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

NSF Announces PAID Summer Research Experiences For Undergraduates

Posted by:

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

Library Study Rooms Equipped with Monitors for Presentation Practice

Published in Tech Today

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 .

DHS Summer Scholarship

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) realizes that the country’s strong science and technology community provides a critical advantage in the development and implementation of counter-terrorist measures and other DHS objectives. The DHS Scholarship and Fellowship Program is intended for students interested in pursuing the basic science and technology innovations that can be applied to the DHS mission. This education program is intended to ensure a highly talented science and technology community to achieve the DHS mission and objectives. Eligible students must be studying in a homeland security related science, technology, engineering and mathematics (HS-STEM) field with an interest, major, or concentration directly related to one of the homeland security research areas.

For more information

Michigan Tech Graduate Student Aids International Bird Rescue Effort

By Jennifer Donovan

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.”