Boise State Geoscientist Matt Kohn has received a $4 million award from the National Science Foundation for a project titled “PIRE: ExTerra Field Institute and Research Endeavor (E-FIRE).” PIRE stands for Partnerships for International Research and Education.
Kohn will work with colleagues from nine institutions, many affiliated with the European collaborative called Zooming In between Plates, or ZIP. They will be looking at how rocks and fluids move within subduction zones, where Earth’s plates converge.
Work will be conducted in northwestern Italy, in the western Alps. The Mediterranean region, which includes Italy and Greece, is part of the African plate that has been colliding with Europe for the past 40 million years. The Alps are just one manifestation of that activity.
PIRE recognizes the value of international partnerships in addressing critical science and engineering questions. Scientists partner with experts internationally while also educating a diverse STEM workforce and fostering the capacity of higher education institutions for international collaboration.
Kohn said an important aspect of the project will be finding new ways to train students in scientific methods, and developing effective assessment tools. “We’re developing a different model of how students are trained in the field and in research activities,” he said.
The project also will focus on new ways for researchers to archive samples collected on site. Currently, geological samples are controlled in-house, with limited access to other researchers.
“We’re proposing a new paradigm,” Kohn said. “Representatives will meet in a specific area, go into the field together and collect together. Rocks then will be housed at Penn State but held communally. Researchers can request pieces of rocks to work on.”
Once the project is complete, those samples will be available to any geologist who wants to study them.
The project includes yearly workshops to discuss results, student exchanges with E-FIRE institutions here in the United States, and two- to four-month internships at a collaborating European institution. Organizers will be looking at ways to assess how students integrate collaboration into their work and how that informs the learning process.
“The goal is to build a collaborative network – a cohort of students who network with other students, other universities in the United States and with European universities,” Kohn said.
Grants are open to all scientific and engineering disciplines and are highly competitive. The NSF has awarded the first year of funding to Boise State University for support of the project and expects to contribute more than $3 million more over the next four years. Co-PIs are Maureen Feineman (Pennsylvania State University) and Sarah Penniston-Dorland (University of Maryland). Boise State is the lead institution on the grant.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No.1545903 to Boise State University. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
BY: KATHLEEN TUCKÂ Â Â PUBLISHED 2:12 PM / SEPTEMBER 21, 2015