Engendering the Spirit of Gadugi at the Food-Energy-Water Nexus

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).

To address the future workforce needs at the Human-Technology Frontier, professionals are needed who are effective at both finding and solving problems. Traditional approaches to graduate student training are constrained in preparing innovators for emerging societal challenges. In these models, experts often define the problems to be solved, depriving students of critical learning opportunities in problem identification.

Instead, this project will investigate a potentially transformative model of graduate education that makes students the center of innovation through immersive, interdisciplinary, and cross-cultural experiences. Students will be trained to identify and solve problems through a graduate-student-focused adaptation of the Renaissance Foundry educational Model (RFM).

This model has been previously demonstrated at the undergraduate level for effective development of holistic, "T-shaped" professionals with strong problem identification and problem-solving skills in depth, complemented by broad collaborative and interdisciplinary traits. Students will learn to apply their training as they collaboratively find and address challenges at the food-energy-water nexus in Appalachian, Native American, and other rural communities, which are at the center of the mission of Tennessee Tech University (TTU).

The project will directly support 20 students (8 PhD; 12 MS) as NRT trainees with stipends. No fewer than 60 additional graduate student trainees will be included, along with undergraduate and K-12 students.

Four objectives will guide the implementation of this project. First is to modify and adapt the RFM as an interdisciplinary, graduate-level STEM educational model. Second is to build graduate level organizational outreach, supports, and capacities to implement and sustain the RFM.

Third is to implement and test the model with graduate students, and fourth is to support and mentor students' transition from education to independent research and early STEM career pathways. Key elements of this training model include opportunities for immersion in partnering communities for problem identification as well as preparation for such experiences through a cultural training course; and guidance in ensuring that the problems identified and the research-based solutions developed are aligned with community needs.

Trainees will be co-mentored by a team of researchers collectively providing technical and socio-cultural expertise, and each trainee will complete a program of study consistent with their degree program objectives, receive extensive and guided training in research methods and research at the FEW nexus, as well as career training and opportunities for internship experiences.

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.