About the Undergraduate Fellowship Program
The PINEMAP Undergraduate Fellowship Program is part of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Coordinated Agricultural Project (CAP) funded Pine Integrated Network: Education, Mitigation and Adaptation Program’s education Aim. The Fellowship Program has two components- the undergraduate internship and the graduate student/ post-doc/ staff researcher mentorship. The program’s goal is to pair interns with graduate student mentors based on program aims and research interests (visit the Aims or Interests page to find out more about these).
Announcements for the Fellowship Program will be distributed to colleges and universities in the southeastern United States, the geographic scale of PINEMAP, during late November to early December. Undergraduates in any degree program can apply to intern in any of the 6 Aims, however they must be interested in natural resources, environmental science, economics, or related fields. A call for proposals for micro-grants will be distributed to PINEMAP institutions during late November to early December, as only PINEMAP graduate student, post-doc, and staff researchers are eligible to become mentors. Please see the Fellowship Announcement page or the Call for Proposals page for more details on the application process. A panel of PINEMAP faculty will review applications and make decisions by the end of February. Awards will be announced in March 2014.
Interns will be compensated for assisting CAP-funded graduate students with laboratory and/or field research during the summer semester for approximately 12 weeks. During the summer interns will gain valuable experience conducting research related to their chosen discipline. Mentors will also provide interns with additional guidance on how scientific research is conducted and data are analyzed. After their internship, students (with the help of a faculty sponsor at their home institution) will take undergraduate research or special topics credits to participate in a mandatory distance-based education course for the Fall semester. Faculty at Virginia Tech will deliver the course and will cover topics related to inquiry-based science education, including public speaking and presentation development. Interns will, over the semester, learn techniques and develop skills for oral and written communication, create quality presentations targeted for specific audiences, and provide engaging educational lessons to secondary students in local communities through service learning. These lessons will be related to the internship experience, so interns will have an opportunity to communicate their new knowledge and become a critical part of the PINEMAP mission. Interns may also have the opportunity to attend an annual PINEMAP meeting to present their experiences and interact with other interns, mentors, and faculty.
Graduate student mentors in the Fellowship Program are awarded micro-grants to fund interns assisting with specific parts of their PINEMAP research projects. Due to the scope of the Intern Program, awardees will receive an interdisciplinary experience in mentoring and education. Graduate students will gain invaluable experience teaching interns how to conduct professional research in a variety of disciplines that includes genetics, economics, education and extension. This involvement will help mentors prepare for furthering careers in guiding research programs and teaching in higher education settings. Graduate students will also be involved with interns during the Fall semester as they help advise their intern’s presentation. Mentors will work with interns to develop their educational lesson until they are ready to present it to secondary students.
If you have additional questions, please contact the Program Coordinator.
