CHANGE-IGERT (Certificate on Humans and the Global Environment)

A GRADUATE FUNDING PROGRAM SUPPORTED BY THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION: Application deadline, January 2, 2009.

The University of Wisconsin's CHANGE (Certificate on Humans and the Global Environment) program is looking for exceptional Ph.D. students who want to become "change agents" through their research on global environmental vulnerability and sustainability. With IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education, Research, and Training) grant funding from the National Science Foundation we can provide up to two years of full financial support to qualified incoming Ph.D. students. The CHANGE program involves faculty members in departments ranging from atmospheric and oceanic sciences, geography, and environmental history to community and environmental sociology, environmental studies, and public health.

Features of the CHANGE-IGERT:

The CHANGE IGERT provides one or two years of stipend, tuition, and   health insurance for 3 to 4 CHANGE Fellows each year. CHANGE Fellowship students must apply and be accepted in a UW-Madison Ph.D. program and also separately apply to receive IGERT support. View our CHANGE Fellowship application page:(http://www.sage.wisc.edu/igert/fellowship_application.html) for more information on applying for this grant funding. Note: Because of NSF rules, only U.S. Citizens or Permanent Residents can be funded as CHANGE Fellows.

All CHANGE Fellows participate in our innovative Certificate on Humans and the Global Environment (CHANGE) - a certificate that can be added to any graduate degree at UW-Madison. CHANGE trains participating students to work more effectively across disciplinary boundaries by providing classes, training, research and teaching opportunities that encourage collaboration and joint problem solving pertaining to coupled human, non-human natural systems. For more information, view the Nelson Institute's CHANGE program web page (http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/grad/change/).

Our faculty and students promote research that focuses on understanding the links between human and non-human elements in natural systems so that vulnerabilities can be identified and sustainable solutions can be developed and promoted. Current themes include:

  • Systems Analysis of Global Environmental Processes and Dynamics
  • Globalization and Global Environmental Change: Knowledge,  Institutions and Governance
  • Textures of Place: Geography, History, Ecology, and Politics
  • Transdisciplinary Approaches to Pedagogy, Management, and  Organization in Global Environment Studies

The CHANGE program is building a community of scholars across the UW-Madison campus and beyond whose research focuses on issues of environmental sustainability on a wide variety of spatial and temporal scales. Explore our core faculty web page (http://www.sage.wisc.edu/igert/faculty.html) for more information on the specific research interests of IGERT affiliated faculty. Two faculty members from the Graduate Program of Sociology/Community and Environmental Sociology are affiliated with CHANGE/IGERT: Samer Alatout and Katherine Curtis. Please contact them if you have questions. For more information, visit the UW-Madison CHANGE IGERT web pages at http://www.sage.wisc.edu/igert


NOTE: UW-Madison also is home to a second IGERT program focused on Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Development in Southwest China. IGERT trainees in this program pursue a PhD in one of over a dozen departments and participate in IGERT seminars, workshops, language training, and field research in the Himalayas of Yunnan, China - a "biodiversity hotspot." For more information, please visit http://www.swchina.wisc.edu. The application deadline for this program is January 30, 2009.

Related links

NSF IGERT Program: http://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/igert/intro.jsp
UW-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies: http://www.nelson.wisc.edu