This course (taught by five IGERT faculty, Inskeep lead) will define and explore methods for linking critical disciplinary components important in defining geomicrobiological systems, including coverage of the following components: Hydrodynamics and Mass Transfer, Geochemistry and Kinetics, Microbial Physiology and Ecology, Biochemistry, Microbial Genetics and Genomics. We do not envision this course as a substitute for departmental requirements and thorough disciplinary focus, but rather, it will provide a rigorous and integrated coverage of the important components in geobiology, and immediately begin to synchronize student thinking. Our vision for this course is to lay out a ‘parts list’ of all the biological, geochemical and geophysical measurements and data that could be used to define a geomicrobiological system (e.g. industrial pipe, geothermal spring). Students will be required to confront the realities and constraints of collecting a thorough and meaningful data set that addresses the entire system. In so doing, they will encounter normal problems in attempting to predict or generalize something meaningful about the ‘system’, especially based on a data set that is populated with information collected at different scales of observation! We want students thinking about these problems immediately in the first semester and to approach their work in the context of conceptual models of the entire system. Based on past experiences with team-taught courses, our IGERT faculty feel strongly that this course not be structured as a ‘show and tell’ of 15 different faculty. Our mission in this course is to emphasize the linkages among us and how these can be formalized through coverage of individual disciplinary components.

The primary objective of this course is to have students lead (with faculty support) a systems approach and analysis of a single case study. This course will be taught by three IGERT faculty members representing the physiochemical, microbiological and molecular sciences. Utilizing a relevant geomicrobial case study, the faculty will guide a practicum where students participate in all facets of study-site characterization, hypothesis generation and testing, data collection, data interpretation and professional presentation. Student teams, in consultation with the faculty team, will determine approaches and methods, experimental design, and data collection. Students will prepare a final presentation at the end of the semester, and again the following Fall Semester to incoming IGERT students. Practicum case studies will draw on a wealth of MSU faculty focal areas described above (Section C.3). Many of the chosen case studies will represent opportunities for individual graduate student research projects.

Students will begin a formal three-term laboratory rotation during their first semester. Participating faculty will host students in their laboratories and integrate them with other laboratory personnel. The primary objective of the laboratory rotation program is to provide three different disciplinary perspectives where each could serve as a possible home for the IGERT student graduate thesis project. IGERT students will be integrated into existing programs while they are on a rotation assignment. We will not expect or encourage students to develop their own projects during the rotation assignment.

This course will provide students with scientific proposal writing skills. This course will be taught by an IGERT faculty team (from different departments) and will cover components of hypothesis-driven research proposals, including: identification of a compelling problem, rationale, hypotheses, objectives, experimental design, and budgets. All proposals will be reviewed by a student/faculty panel, revised if necessary, followed by final submission. This course will provide much needed training in competitive proposal writing and ensure that each IGERT student develops an excellent individual proposal, prepared in consultation with the IGERT faculty co-mentors who will assume responsibility and provide student stipend support for the remaining Ph.D. program. Upon final approval by the IGERT Executive Board (see Management C.6), the proposal will serve to formally establish individual IGERT student research projects.

This course is offered in the Veterinary and Molecular Biology Department and is open to IGERT students. The study of ethics helps researchers think more clearly about professional expectations, and challenges them to develop an increased awareness of the ethical issues encountered in various research endeavors. This course covers a variety of topics where ethics are part of the decision making process for scientists. For example, topics include scientific integrity, deception in research, research methodology, mentoring and interpersonal interaction, publication, institutional responsibilities, and the development of genetically-modified organisms. Overall, the goal of this course is to expose students to the kinds of ethical issues and federal requirements they will likely encounter throughout their careers and make them better prepared to deal with those issues and requirements.

This course will provide IGERT students with a formal opportunity for intensive individual study using state-of-the-art analytical instrumentation, molecular, computational, and or biochemical methods. Students will focus on facilities or methodological approaches central to the success of their individual thesis projects. This course will be coordinated by an IGERT faculty team , and will capitalize on expertise from several IGERT faculty who supervise analytical or molecular centers at MSU including the Image and Chemical Analysis Laboratory (Avci), the Mass Spectrometry Center (Neal, Bothner), the Genomics Facility (Ford, Franklin, McInnerney), the Life Science Analytical Laboratory (Inskeep, Skidmore, McGlynn), the CBE Analytical Center (Gerlach, Neuman, Pitts), and the Magnetic Resonance Imaging Facility (Codd, Seymour). Students will also have the opportunity to work in a new state-ofthe- art cryo-facility (Adams, Priscu, Foreman and Skidmore) that will provide opportunities that do not exist on most campuses, and that will allow significant advancements in cryo-biology. Students may also emphasize synchrotron technologies, as several of the IGERT faculty members have active beam-time awards at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory and at the Advanced Light Source (Inskeep, Peters, Fendorf). Students may also emphasize technologies where travel or collaboration with affiliate scientists would enhance the objective to obtain the best training possible in at least one of the tools central to the student research project.

IGERT students are required to participate in a domestic or international internship at an academic, private and or national laboratory. The internship(s) should represent an extensive visit to another laboratory to accomplish specific goals necessary for, and or integral to the student’s Ph.D. research project.

IGERT MSU

Montana State University
Bozeman Montana
binskeep@montana.edu · 406·994·5077
cforeman@montana.edu · 406·994·7361