NRT: Sustainable Water Innovations in Materials: Mentoring, Education, and Research (SWIMMER)

Water resources are in a state of crisis both in the U.S. and globally. Water management requires treating and delivering water from limited, often declining resources to meet the needs of a growing global population. So-called ‘forever chemicals’ are now found to contaminate drinking water supplies, and toxic products are commonly discharged into waterways.

The Sustainable Water Innovations in Materials – Mentoring, Education, and Research (SWIMMER) program will produce trainees who will research, innovate, manufacture, and manage sustainable materials and chemicals aimed at protecting water resources over their entire life cycle. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award to the University of Massachusetts Lowell will harness and hone the talent of young scientists and engineers from multiple disciplines to transform the lifecycle of materials and their interaction with water ecosystems.

The project will train 60 master’s and Ph.D. students, including 25 funded trainees, from the fields of Plastics, Mechanical, Chemical and Civil/Environmental Engineering, Chemistry, Earth Science, Biology, Public Health, and Economics. The SWIMMER trainees will engage in deep and meaningful interactions across various disciplines. This interdisciplinary training will result in graduates equipped to address multi-faceted challenges requiring STEM innovations, understanding their socio-economic and political foundations, and responsive to societal needs for environmental justice and inclusive decision-making.

The program leaders will also make a strategic commitment to broadening participation of the SWIMMER cohorts by recruiting students from underrepresented groups to pursue a STEM graduate degree.

SWIMMER trainees will conduct convergent research across three transformative themes: Watersheds as Living Labs, Circular Materials Design for Pollution Prevention and Remediation, and Sustainable Product Design and Toxics Use Reduction. The program features bias and inclusion training for a diverse and supportive community, communication skills training, immersion in industrial history, a two-semester core course preceded by a preparatory boot camp to establish a common convergent knowledge baseline, and team capstone projects closely linked to academic research and the needs of industry and society.

Combined with the recruitment of diverse trainees from partner institutions and in collaboration with industrial and community stakeholders, this program will prepare the large share of graduate students seeking industry positions upon graduation as well as the next generation of faculty.

The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The program is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary or convergent research areas through comprehensive traineeship models that are innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.