RUI: Unsolicited WPMS: Enhancing Career Opportunities - Integrative Mathematical Program for Analyzing Coastal Systems (ECO-IMPACS)

Sam Houston State University, Huntsville TX

Investigators

Abstract

Enhancing Career Opportunities - Integrative Mathematical Program for Analyzing Coastal Systems (ECO-IMPACS) is a workforce program in environmental mathematics at Sam Houston State University (SHSU) and the Texas Research Institute for Environmental Studies (TRIES). The ECO-IMPACS program will provide students from mathematical and biological sciences the opportunity to collaborate on a cutting edge research program to study how recent environmental fluctuations have impacted coastal marsh ecosystems at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Specifically, students will examine how hydrologic, nutrient and physical drivers affect key food resources of the endangered whooping crane (Grus americana). ECO-IMPACS students will learn about the biology of ANWR, travel to ANWR to collect field data, and analyze their data in a TRIES laboratory. ECO-IMPACS students will be instructed on the fundamentals of dynamical model building in the environmental sciences and basic theories of applied mathematics. Informed by their classroom, field, and laboratory work, ECO-IMPACS students will create and analyze mathematical models of hydrologic fluxes, algae population dynamics, and aquatic vegetation growth. Students will investigate agent based and nonlinear differential and difference equation models and analyze model behavior utilizing techniques such as non-dimensionalization, computation of the local and global stability of steady-states, exploration of the existence of periodic solutions, perturbation methods, bifurcation analysis, simulation and numerical computation of solutions, and parameter sensitivity analysis. Graduate students will not only facilitate each stage of the learning process, but also incorporate more advanced mathematics such as stochastic modeling. Community partners will communicate their research objectives and student efforts will be focused on these objectives throughout the modeling process. ECO-IMPACS students will be asked to clearly and practically present their results to community partners and demonstrate that their mathematical models can be used as effective tools to guide community partner research and better understand the ANWR ecosystem. The importance of integrative modeling and computational solutions within the biological sciences has motivated many universities to create and support programs in environmental mathematics. The ECO-IMPACS program is a collaborative and educational program that is rooted in ongoing research on ecosystem dynamics of coastal marshes in the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. The heterogeneous nature of the ANWR ecosystem and wide range of both natural and anthropogenic influences in the system provide multiple opportunities for collaboration between students in mathematical and biological sciences. In the ECO-IMPACS program, students will construct mathematical models based on data collected in the field and in the laboratory, perform theoretical and numerical analyses of these models, and report their results in terms that are immediately applicable to the objectives of our community partners (e.g., Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the International Crane Foundation). The involvement of mathematics and biology students in all phases of the scientific method will produce a more unified perspective about the use of modeling, simulation, laboratory procedures, and field methods in an integrative setting. The primary goals for ECO-IMPACS are to provide undergraduate and graduate students with a summer internship that develops their ability to successfully integrate mathematics and biology to complete entry level assignments in the field of environmental mathematics. Students will develop critical skills that U.S. employers desire of their employees (e.g., environmental sampling techniques, mathematical modeling, oral and written communications, teamwork, critical thinking, and problem solving) as they receive feedback and guidance from faculty members and community partners. Thus, ECO-IMPACS participants will be better prepared for both mathematical and environmentally oriented careers in a green economy. This award is jointly supported by the Workforce and Mathematical Biology programs within the Division of Mathematical Sciences.