Overview
Global change and environmental protection are critical issues facing society today. This Research Experience for Undergraduates program will bring students majoring in science and engineering to work on environmental systems at The University of Iowa. This REU will provide students a broad range of multidisciplinary research opportunities in environmental systems (see the Faculty Project Descriptions). The program is administered through the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research (CGRER) on the University of Iowa Campus. The Center is committed to encouraging and facilitating the participation of inquisitive undergraduate students in a modern research effort in environmental systems.
Research Environment
This REU program focuses on the multidisciplinary area of environmental science. The REU grant will be used to significantly enhance undergraduate education by providing students with the opportunity to participate in research in this area. The University of Iowa has broad strengths in the area of environmental science. There are 41 courses related directly to the subject and 14 different centers with a significant environmental emphasis. Much of the multidisciplinary research related to environmental science is coordinated through the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research (CGRER).
CGRER was established to foster interdisciplinary research and teaching in the field of environmental change. CGRER is concerned with both the scientific and human dimensions of global change, with particular focus on how regional environmental and social systems respond and interact to changes in the global environment. The primary goals of CGRER are to:
The Center fosters interdisciplinary research through providing research space, offering seed grants, and hosting seminar series and specialty conferences. The Center currently consists of 65 faculty, 75 graduate students, 15 postdoctoral and visiting scientist, from seventeen departments and six colleges, and two universities (University of Iowa and Iowa State University). The departments include: Biology; Botany; Chemistry; Economics; Geography; Geology; College of Law; Microbiology; Public Policy Center; Chemical & Biochemical Engineering; Civil & Environmental Engineering; Mechanical Engineering; Physics & Astronomy; Physiology & Biophysics; Preventive Medicine & Environ. Health; Urban & Regional Planning at the University of Iowa and Geological & Atmospheric Sciences at Iowa State University. Each faculty member belongs to their home academic department, and voluntarily joins CGRER. Center members conduct research in a wide variety of important areas in environmental science including: tropospheric chemistry; stratospheric chemistry; bioremediation; environmentally benign synthesis; environmental catalysis; atmospheric and cloud radiation; remote sensing; tropical microbial ecology; atmospheric aerosols; international law; biomass burning; human consequences and responses; paleoclimatology and paleoecology; ecosystem evolution; cultural ecology; biogeochemistry; sustainable development; hydrometeorology; flooding; and rainfall.
CGRER is based in the Iowa Advanced Technology Laboratories (IATL) building. The IATL was funded by a $25.1 million state appropriation in 1987. The IATL houses the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Laboratory (see below), the administrative offices, and provides space for multidisciplinary research activities of the faculty and students of CGRER. Computer communications connect CGRER faculty and students with their "home" departments and colleagues throughout campus and beyond.
The GIS laboratory, established in the fall of 1990 (through an equipment grant from Hewlett Packard Inc. and with funds obtained through University of Iowa President's Strategic Planning Initiative), provides Center members, their students, and visiting scientists access to state-of-the-art computer facilities to support their environmental research projects. In particular, the laboratory provides the capabilities to manage, analyze, and visualize environmental data using UNIX- based computer workstations. This includes a variety of software such as that for geographic information systems, satellite image processing, statistical data analysis, numerical computation, parallel processing, and scientific data visualization. In addition, the laboratory maintains an archive of digital geographic and environmental databases to support such research. The laboratory also employs a full time GIS expert and systems manager. The faculty of the Center have also been instrumental in obtaining high performance computing equipment, including a Silicon Graphics Power Challenge. The most recent initiative is a NASA award where we will be establishing a Laboratory for the Immersive Visualization of the Environment, built around an ImmersaDesk virtual reality system. The Center has also obtained global positioning system (GPS) equipment for field work. This instrumentation can be used to obtain sub-meter positional (geographic) accuracy of specific locations in the field. Software for processing this data and incorporating it into a geographic information system is available in the computer laboratory. The Center also operates an outdoor laboratory located in rural Iowa. This fully instrumented watershed is used for a variety of monitoring and field observational programs, as well as an outdoor classroom. In addition to the computational facilities and the GPS equipment, individual faculty laboratories have extensive additional specialized equipment for research in environmental science.
Other unique strengths of the Center include: recognition by DOE as one of ~25 sites to receive students who are awarded DOE Global Change Fellowships; receipt of a NASA Environmental Change Earth Systems Science Curriculum Development Grant, one of 22 Universities so recognized; the Center collaborates closely (with many joint members) with on-campus centers and institutes including the world famous Iowa Institute of Hydraulic Research, the EPA Hazardous Substances Research Center Core Institution, and the NIEHS Environmental Health Sciences Research Center; and is a member of the University Consortium on Atmospheric Research. In recognition of our multidisciplinary activities and broad environmental strengths, we have recently been awarded funding from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation through their Postdoctoral Program in Environmental Science.
In summary, the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research at the University of Iowa can offer a unique environment for an undergraduate research training program because of its breadth of activities in environmental science, its strong physical and engineering science focus, and its excellent facilities.