Graduate Program

Please Note: This program is currently under revision

PREP: Pacific Rim Exchange Program

An advanced 20-day program in field ecology run by the E&ERC (UNSW) and UC Davis that takes graduate students from the northern Californian coastal heath and marine kelp forests to the estuarine beaches and sclerophyll forests of northern New South Wales.

The program will run from March 13 to April 1 2011. The deadline for applications from UNSW students has now passed. The deadline for UC Davis students is anticipated to be December 1, 2010.

PREP is a joint initiative between the E&ERC Graduate Program at UNSW and the Population Biology Graduate Group, Animal Behavior Graduate Group and Graduate Group of Ecology at the University of California, Davis (UCD).

Students at any stage in their PhDs are encouraged to apply, and applications are open to all Evolution and Ecology PhD candidates from UNSW and UC Davis.

PREP is specially designed to prepare graduate students for an international career in ecology and evolution research. The course is structured around students developing and executing team-based research projects on a range of Pacific Rim ecosystems. Students are taught to think creatively and broadly in their research and are given the skills required to establish successful, productive collaborations.

Places in the program are limited to facilitate one-on-one training and to provide a close-knit collaborative atmosphere among the American and Australian students and teaching staff. It is therefore anticipated that enrollment will be capped at a total of 12-16 students from UCD and UNSW.

Teaching staff are world experts in field ecology and evolution from UCD and UNSW.

 

 

 

 

 

PHASE I:     The northern Californian coastline is spectacular, a popular tourist attraction, and is the backdrop to the American half of PREP.

Accompanied by an E&ERC faculty member, UNSW students fly to San Francisco and travel north along California's famous Highway 1 to the Bodega Marine Laboratory (BML). BML is a world-class field station with access to marine, estuarine, fresh water and terrestrial environments. Here UNSW students join their UCD counterparts from the Population Biology, Animal Behavior and Ecology graduate groups. Working together in small groups, UCD and UNSW students complete an accelerated research project, analyze the data and present the results. Partying ensues, followed by a sober flight for the entire group to Sydney for Phase II.

 

 

 

 

 

PHASE II:    Nestled within the Myall Lakes National Park, the Smiths Lake Field Station offers exclusive access to one of the most popular natural areas in New South Wales, and provides the location for the Australian half of PREP.

Following an overnight stay in Sydney, UNSW and UCD participants travel north together along the New South Wales coast to UNSW’s Smiths Lake Field Station. Here, the group expand on their studies at Bodega and undertake similar intensive projects on the contrasting environments around the Smiths Lake area. The region around the field station includes an extensive system of estuarine lakes, tracts of sandy coastal heath, swamps, as well as sclerophyll and rain forests.

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At the end of the program, students walk away with:

• new skills in designing and implementing research projects on ecological systems they had not previously had experience with;
• an international network of academic and peer-group contacts that they can call upon as they develop their scientific careers.

Furthermore:

• PhD candidates in the early stages of their degrees can explore possible collaborations with faculty and students at UCD or UNSW, and the feasibility of conducting research in the U.S. or Australia.
• PhD candidates in the final stages of their degrees can explore potential postdoctoral research opportunities at UCD or UNSW, and in American or Australia more generally.

The timing of PREP provides the additional option for students to participate in Bodega Applied Phylogenetics Workshops*, which is scheduled to run the week before PREP begins. The workshop draws postgraduate students from around the world and is taught by leading experts on comparative methods and phylogenetics. The workshop is relevant for any student with an interest in evolution and wishing to learn the techniques behind the use of phylogenies in ecological research.

*Participation in the Bodega Applied Phylogenetics Workshop comes at additional cost to the student.

PREP Applications:
UNSW students need to fill out an application form and email it to Terry Ord (t.ord@unsw.edu.au). NOTE: the application deadline for UNSW students has now passed.

UC Davis students interested in participating in the program should contact Brad Shaffer (hbshaffer@ucdavis.edu). The application deadline is anticipated to be Dec 1, 2010.