UMEB: Travel to Estuarine Research Federation Conferences to be held in 2005 and 2007

College Of William And Mary, Williamsburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

This UMEB program will fund 15 students each year to travel to the Fall 2005 and 2007 Estuarine Research Federation (ERF) biennial conferences to be held in Norfolk, VA, and Providence, RI, respectively. Funding will be used for participation of undergraduate students who are involved in estuarine or coastal marine research, particularly those students from groups under-represented in the sciences. In addition to their own poster presentations and to attending oral and poster sessions throughout the week, participating students will attend scheduled events including a pre-conference workshop, an initial meet-and-greet session with distinguished ERF representatives, a mixer with graduate students and scientists from the coastal NSF Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) programs, and an end-of-conference evaluation session. Through each day's events, the students and their mentors will have structured times to gather as a group and/or in individual pairs to discuss, share and ensure an educationally distinctive and rewarding learning experience. The goal is to use the ERF conference as a gateway to increase minority involvement in estuarine research, management and policy through early attraction and retention of undergraduate students into these fields. The PI (Randy Chambers), as chair of the ERF Education Committee, and his staff at the College of William and Mary will coordinate the UMEB/ERF program. For more information, students may contact Randy Chambers at (757) 221-2331 or rmcham@wm.edu, or visit the ERF website at http://www.erf.org.