DEVELOPING GLOBAL GEOSCIENTISTS: FROM POLAND TO AUSTRALIA

The Initiating New Science Partnerships In Rural Education (INSPIRE) program, funded by NSF Graduate STEM Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12), at Mississippi State University is designed to not only improve the education of the students in the local school systems, but also to enhance the development of the graduate fellows involved in the program. Fellows involved with the INSPIRE program gain invaluable skills in communication and teaching in a classroom setting. Another aspect of the development of the graduate fellows is the international research opportunity that is provided through the INSPIRE fellowship. Mississippi State University has a network of international institutes that welcome fellows every year to perform research within their fields of interest. These institutes include Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (Lublin, Poland), University of Surrey (Surrey, England), University of Wollongong (New South Wales, Australia), and Gerace Research Center: University of the Bahamas. This experience is unique to the INSPIRE program, and allows graduate students to further develop their careers in the STEM fields. Geoscience fellows, in particular, have played an important role in the international aspect of the INSPIRE program, traveling to Poland, England, and Australia to conduct research. These experiences have proved to be beneficial in multiple ways. By conducting international research, the geoscience graduate fellows are able to better understand and communicate their own research, as well as their international colleague's research. In Australia, fellows have worked with unmanned aerial vehicles to map landslides as well as GIS soil moisture measurements. In England, fellows worked with faculty on the effects of inclement weather on flight safety. Research has been conducted extensively in hydrology at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University. Graduate fellows traveling to Lublin, Poland have studied denudation rates, basic water quality parameters, and discharge rates in the Lubelskie, Rzeszów, and Roztoce regions of Poland. These experiences have proved to be incredibly rewarding for the graduate fellows involved and will have a lasting impression on the future geoscientists as these fellows bring their experiences back to their participating schools.