Early in 2025, the School of the Environment solicited faculty applications for its Strategic Investment Initiative. The program offered funding to faculty researchers from any discipline as long as their project was related to the environment and supported the school’s values of experiential learning, community engagement and interdisciplinary collaboration.
The Strategic Investment Initiative received overwhelming interest from faculty and the school was able to fund 12 projects. Some of the funded researchers are from traditional environmental programs, like geosciences and environmental studies. Others come from sciences like biology and chemistry, or even the humanities and social sciences.
The School of the Environment was founded on the idea that environmental challenges are too big for a single researcher or discipline to tackle alone. This impressive array of projects represents the broad interest in cross-disciplinary collaboration to address environmental challenges.
Among the principal investigators supported this year was Professor James McNamara from the Department of Geosciences. The Strategic Investment Initiative provided funding for a Ph.D. student to join McNamara’s global team of researchers on the Dry Creek Experimental Watershed, a hydrological laboratory in Boise’s foothills. Thanks to support from the School of the Environment, that student began in fall 2025 and joined the team in applying for a large external grant.
In addition to funding, the Strategic Investment Initiative will also provide storytelling support for grant recipients. Watch School of the Environment social media channels in the upcoming year to hear more about these exciting projects.