IRES Track I: Student Research Experience in Germany to Resolve Complex Plant Traits

Washington State University (WSU) and Germany’s CEPLAS program (Cluster of Excellence on Plant Sciences) intend to develop a cohort of carefully selected, diverse IRES scholars as globally educated graduate and undergraduate students for international leadership in Plant Biology research that emphasizes solutions to the huge challenge of sustainable food production. The scholars’ international research experience will be flanked by a rich cultural and social program organized by CEPLAS.

The IRES project will also incorporate a transatlantic virtual collaborative component, not only as a contingency plan if international travel is restricted, but also as a venue to prepare the IRES students ahead of their international experience and sustain their connections with CEPLAS’ scientists and students after the experience. The success of the proposed IRES project will be fostered by the already existing excellent infrastructure offered by CEPLAS for international students.

Through the direct cooperation between European and US scientists in this program, the IRES scholars will increase their competency about crop plants with more environmentally resilient photosynthesis and metabolism, enhanced interactions with beneficial microbes, and defenses against pathogens. The interdisciplinary IRES research experiences in Germany will also train the scholars on the initiation, establishment, and cultivation of scientific collaborations, which will benefit them in their professional careers, make them more marketable for research occupations both domestically and internationally, and sustain regional and national economies with multinational corporations in the agricultural industries.

The NSF-IRES venture between WSU and the German Institutions within the CEPLAS program has resulted from a strategic research and education partnership between the two institutions. The CEPLAS cluster includes the Universities of Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, which are world-class research centers.

The IRES scholars will work on research projects that revolve on a deeper understanding of complex plant traits. The knowledge gained by this fundamental research has high agronomic relevance that can help to improve the yield and adaptation of crop plants to limited natural resources and pave the way for bioengineering crop plants that are more productive and robust against environmental challenges.

Hence, the research education received by these scholars will broadly expand society’s knowledge about plant biology towards improving food security while protecting the environment. A diverse cohort of 16 graduate and 8 undergraduate students with an eight-student cohort each year, from the WSU’s College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences and the College of Arts and Sciences, will complete a 10-week-long research experience in Germany, with English as the working language.

At CEPLAS, an internationally acclaimed research center, each IRES scholar will conduct fundamental research, carefully selected by a pool of 16 German/US research pairs. Under the tutelage of leading CEPLAS Plant Science researchers, the scholars’ research will address the challenge of a comprehensive understanding of complex biological processes and traits in plants and their regulation and inheritance. This project is funded by the Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE).

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.