The UCSC Earth Futures Institute

The UCSC Earth Futures Institute is pleased to announce a new program of undergraduate research opportunities called EFI Frontier Fellowships. Each Frontier Fellowship provides the chance for an undergraduate student to do meaty interdisciplinary research on topics relevant to planning Earth’s future. Supervising these projects is also a chance for faculty to
pursue project ideas that have long interested them but are difficult to fund from traditional funding sources. Each award includes a summer stipend of $5000 for the student and $2000 for research expenses and/or a faculty honorarium. Information on the Earth Futures Institute and its goals are available on the Institute’s website https://earthfutures.sites.ucsc.edu.

Submit proposals by sending an email with a pdf document attached to earthfut@ucsc.edu.

The due date for proposals is March 1, 2022.

For additional information, please contact EFI Director Prof. Sandra Faber at earthfut@ucsc.edu Please put “Frontier Fellows Project” in the subject line.

The EFI Frontier Fellows Program is open to students and faculty (including emeriti) from all departments across all five academic divisions.

Program description:

1) The duration of the program is from the beginning of Spring Quarter 2022 to the end of Spring Quarter 2023, inclusive.

2) Students and faculty will jointly write a short proposal outlining the goals of the project, the approach, and the deliverables. Proposals are due March 1, 2022. The proposals will be reviewed by the EFI Frontier Projects Review Committee, with the goal of having them in place by the beginning of Spring Quarter 2022. Three awards are anticipated.
— One project is for an interdisciplinary project involving the Genomics Institute.
— One project is for an interdisciplinary project involving the Humanities Division.
— The third project is open to all divisions.

3) To facilitate the interdisciplinary nature of the projects, two faculty advisors are
recommended, preferably from separate academic divisions but in any case, from different fields. One faculty advisor is acceptable if the advisor possesses the requisite breadth of expertise. Each faculty team is limited to one student.

4) How to apply: Project proposals should briefly describe the proposed work to be done and its impact and importance. A proposed budget for the faculty allocation (up to $2000) should be provided. Projects will be judged on the following criteria: 1) importance of the work to planning the future of Earth over both short-term (decades) and/or long-term (millions of years). 2) Originality: has this idea been thought of before or is it new? 3) Interdisciplinary nature: Is the project consonant with EFI’s strategy of viewing Earth’s Future through multiple disciplinary lenses? 4) Feasibility: Is it likely that the project as envisioned can be completed with the available time and resources? 5) Faculty commitment: Are faculty with the required expertise available and committed to the success of the project? The impact of possible continuing COVID restrictions should be taken into account and addressed.

5) It is envisioned that students will do foundational background reading and project planning during Spring Quarter, giving them a running start to focus full-time on project work over the summer. Students are expected to work full-time during the Summer Quarter of 2022 under the direction and supervision of their faculty advisors. Students will receive a $5000 summer stipend, and the $2000 allocation per project to faculty is intended to cover research expenses, salaries for possible graduate student mentors, faculty honoraria, etc. Students are not academically enrolled or employed by UCSC during the summer and do not receive academic credit; their stipends are paid through UCSC student fellowships. The student will continue work on the project during the 2022-2023 academic year, and the project must be completed and submitted by the end of Spring Quarter 2023.

6) The deliverables together with a short summary report will be evaluated by the Frontier Projects Review Committee. Work deemed to meet the high standards of the program will be denoted an Earth Futures Institute Frontier Project, and students who successfully complete the program will receive the designation Earth Futures Institute Frontier Fellow.

7) Deliverables: Each project must have at least one clearly defined deliverable, but its nature may vary depending on the nature of the research. The standard model is the senior thesis, which is a substantial original document written by the student under the guidance of their advisor(s). It is hoped that in many cases the results will develop into publishable papers. This mode is appropriate to the methods of documenting and promulgating research results in the sciences, engineering, and social sciences but may not properly reflect the nature of scholarly work in other divisions. To encourage participation by faculty from all five divisions, faculty may define other types of deliverables that are more appropriate to the nature of their discipline.

8) In addition to the deliverables, a short summary report is required of all projects as part of the final materials submitted to the Frontier Projects Review committee. These reports will be archived and posted on the Earth Futures Institute website as a permanent record of the program. If the results are exciting and of sufficient interest, students and their faculty advisors may be asked to provide information about the work to media and other interested groups (e.g., UCSC alumni) both on and off campus.

9) UC Riverside collaboration opportunity: The Earth Futures Institute at UCSC has a partner institution at UC Riverside. Frontier projects that involve collaborating faculty between UCSC and UCR are particularly welcome. To locate potential faculty partners, please contact Prof. Bahram Mobasher (mobasher@ucr.edu) at UCR.

10) Faculty roles: In this first year of the program, we are counting on faculty to take the initiative to develop project ideas and single out students to work with. Faculty and students should then write their research proposal together. (In future years, the program will be announced campus-wide by the UCSC Honors Program, and interested students will contact participating faculty, who have posted research topic ideas on the EFI Frontier Projects webpage.

11) Faculty will supervise students over the summer and will continue to supervise the research during the academic year 2022-2023, possibly by offering one or more quarters of Independent Study. They will actively assist the student in successfully completing the agreed- upon deliverables and promulgating the results according to the proposed plan.

12) Eligibility: All Academic Senate members are eligible to supervise an EFI Frontier Project; emeriti faculty are specifically welcome. Students must be in academic good standing in order to apply, with the prospect of receiving their undergraduate degree by June 2023 or before.

13) Relationship to UCSC departmental senior theses and graduation requirements: The nature and magnitude of the research to be undertaken is comparable to that envisioned in original, research-oriented senior theses (as distinct from literature reviews), and it is therefore possible that some students will want to satisfy their senior thesis requirements through a Frontier Fellows Project. It is the responsibility of each student to make sure that their project permits them to fulfill all UCSC and departmental requirements.

Additional background: Background on the Earth Futures Institute and its goals is available at the EFI website: https://earthfutures.sites.ucsc.edu. The present program is the outgrowth of an originally proposed EFI Senior Thesis program, which is described more fully in this GoogleDoc:
 

For reference, a list of senior thesis requirements and options for all UCSC academic
departments and programs is can be found here.