Polar systems are at the forefront of global change science research. IGERT is an interdisciplinary PhD graduate program in polar sciences and engineering that merges expertise and facilities from science (earth sciences and ecology, and evolutionary biology) and engineering science departments at Dartmouth College with the U.S. Cold Regions Research and
Engineering Laboratory (CRREL), creating one of the premier centers of scientific expertise in polar research. The investment of Dartmouth's Dickey Center for International Understanding and its Institute of Arctic Studies in forming relationships with Greenlandic institutions and Inuit leaders and organizations provides the opportunity for intensive field training in Greenland where science, policy, and indigenous issues of the north can be explored. Collectively these
experiences provide rigorous training in polar and related sciences and produce scientists with an advanced knowledge of the role of science in policy and the ethics of conducting research with indigenous people.
Research training is coupled with a coordinated core curriculum that focuses on three components of arctic or Antarctic systems responding to rapid change in climate:
- The cryosphere - glacial ice, snow, and sea ice systems;
- Terrestrial ecosystems and biogeochemical linkages between the soil, plant, and animal system; and
- Human systems - the process of policy making in political and social systems where Western science and traditional knowledge provide information.
Or contact:
The IGERT Program Administrator: IGERT@dartmouth.edu
Ross Virginia, Principal Investigator: Ross.Virginia@dartmouth.edu