By Joyce Kryszak
Buffalo, NY – UB on Thursday announced it has received a $3.1 million grant to train a new kind of environmental experts.
The National Science Foundation grant will bring together some of UB's top professors in a wide range of disciplines - from geography to Native American Studies. Together the team will train PHD students how to think about and solve the complex restoration problems facing the region and the world.
UB Engineering Professor Alan Rabideau is coordinator of the program. He said it is no longer enough to merely understand the science of environmental issues.
He said they will use Western New York and the Great Lakes basin as a living laboratory.
There will be 16 local organizations partnering on the project including, Buffalo State College, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Buffalo Niagara River Keeper.
Linda Schneekloth is a board member for the Riverkeepers. She said preserving the Great Lakes is going to be increasingly important as global warming brings a thirsty world to our banks.
The doctoral degree program will be open to about 25 graduate students beginning in the fall 2008. Ub officials said the grant will pay tuition and expenses to help recruit some of the brightest graduates to the unique interdisciplinary ecology program.
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