Innovation Working Group Proposal Awards
New Mexico EPSCoR funds Innovation Working Groups (IWGs) as a means to provide a venue for engaging NM scientists and educators along with key nationally and internationally recognized experts to address the grand challenges that can transform science and education. This program supports 3-5 day working group activities that are modeled after those hosted by the highly successful NSF-supported National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS). Scientists from New Mexico, the EPSCoR Western Tri-State Consortium, and national or international experts may be invited. A strategic final objective of the IWGs is the submission of proposals that target NSF cross-cutting programs and/or the publication of synthesis papers.
The first Call for Proposals was issued in April with a due date of June 1, 2009. The formal RFP was published on the NM EPSCoR website and through emails to EPSCoR scientists and partners. The review process included anonymous external written reviews and discussion by the EPSCoR management team.
Two proposals will be funded for IWG’s summer and fall of 2009.
Natural and Human Dynamics of Acequia Systems. Lead Investigator: Dr. Alexander (Sam) Fernald, New Mexico State University.
This project will bring together a group of local, national, and international experts to explore the interactions between ecosystem functions and human cultures of traditional acequia irrigation systems. The primary objective will be initial preparation of a grant proposal to the National Science Foundation (NSF) Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH) program. Additional objectives will be writing an integrative paper and preparing complementary grant proposals. The project will build on the activities of the socioeconomics and acequia hydrology team of the current New Mexico EPSCoR project, “Climate Change Impacts on New Mexico’s Mountain Sources of Water”. This interdisciplinary team is effectively working together to understand climate change impacts on hydrology of acequia irrigated valleys and community resilience to change based on acequia culture and tradition. The IWG will allow this team to synthesize complex intersecting topics and produce a clearly formulated and competitive CNH proposal along with other related outcomes.
The New Mexico STEM Higher Education Diversity Pipeline. Lead Investigators: Dr. Micheal Pullin, New Mexico Tech, and Marnie Carroll, Dine College.
Minority racial and cultural groups are underrepresented at the undergraduate, graduate, and professoriate levels in New Mexico colleges and universities, especially in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. This proposal describes an innovation working group (IWG) that will establish a STEM higher education diversity pipeline for the state of New Mexico. The proposed IWG will bring together a group of diverse faculty and university professionals from a wide range of higher education institutions in the state for five days in the fall of 2009. This IWG will examine the current state of diversity efforts at the their own institutions, develop a mission for the group, examine mechanisms for assessment, identify gaps in diversity efforts, develop a statewide pipeline that promotes the advancement of underrepresented minority students, and plan grant writing to fill identified gaps and facilitate the pipeline.