The ecology and evolutionary biology faculty at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln began a initiative (IEEA) in 1999 to foster research and graduate education in both basic and applied ecology, evolution, and behavior. The UNL faculty in these areas constitute one of the strongest research groups on campus, with faculty from biological sciences, natural resource sciences, geosciences, agronomy, the State Museum, plant pathology, entomology, psychology, and anthropology. The goal has been to develop stronger linkages between applied and basic scientists across academic units into an integrated, highly competitive program.

The initiative has sponsored an off-campus annual meeting of ecology and evolutionary biology faculty and graduate students, with keynote speakers and a student poster session. In addition, it has provided funds for graduate student travel awards to national meetings, graduate student summer research fellowships and travel grants, and grants-in-aid for research. Notable accomplishments of the EEAI include:

  • A three-year Department of Education CAANN graduate traing grant for graduate education ($432,855). Program began Fall, 2001.
  • Successfully competed for the federal Grain Plains-Cooerative Ecosystem Studies Unit at UNL, a collaboration between a consortium of federal agencies (USGS, BLM, USDA-FS, BUR and NPS) and universities with UNL as the host institution for this region. This promotes unrestricted flow of significant funds to UNL for a variety of projects, as well as locating complementary federal scientists at UNL for extended time periods.
  • EEAI organized the committee that successfully competed for an NSF Biocomplexity Incubation Grant entitled, "Biocomplexity – Incubation Activity: Spatiotemporal Coupling of Ecological and Geological Dynamics in the Nebraska Sand Hills".
  • An NSF equipment grant has been awarded for a "Multi-user and multi-disciplinary ion and elemental analyzers"

Thus, it is an exciting time to become part of the ecology and evolutionary analysis program at the University of Nebraska - we’ve never been stronger and given these accomplishments, we anticipate achieving even more!

 


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