Eco-DĀS VIII Application

Selection Criteria and Process

Selection criteria will include: balance of subject matter of the applicants' dissertations; potential for near-term interdisciplinary interactions among participants; potential for interdisciplinary interactions with others in future; and diversity of gender, ethnic and racial backgrounds.

International applicants who have demonstrable plans to work in the U.S. or with U.S. scientists will be considered.

An Advisory Board consisting of 5-6 established scientists will evalaute the applications. Its members will represent academic institutions, science organizations, private industry, and government service sectors dealing with oceanography and limnology research. Applications will be reviewed by at least two Advisory Board members and ranked based on established criteria. The joint ranking for all applications will be discussed by the Advisory Board members, who will make a final recommendation for invitation letters. It is likely that the acceptance rate will be 50% or less. The target size for each symposium is 35 recent-PhD participants.

Application Materials

Applicants for the fall 2008 symposium should have received their PhD on or after 30 April 2007, or expect to receive it on or before 30 April 2009. In the latter case, verification of the probable date of completion must be provided, preferably in a letter of support from applicant's current academic advisor. The dissertation work of the applicant must deal with an important ecological problem in oceanography or limnology. Applications will include:

  1. a current resume,
  2. a letter of support from the applicant's current (graduate or postdoctoral) advisor,
  3. a personal statement regarding the applicant's goals and reasons for applying, and
  4. a substantive outline of a proposed chapter to be included in the formal symposium proceedings (see Symposium Proceedings section). For successful applicants, the chapter that will emerge from this outline will review the broader context of the applicant's work to date, establish its relevance and importance, highlight the potential for cross-disciplinary impact and interdisciplinary research, and recommend future directions to achieve such interdisciplinary connections. Chapters will be developed and written in collaboration with at least one other participant.

All application materials should be submitted at the same time. We recommend uploading each as a separate file, preferably in RTF, DOC, TXT or PDF format. The letter of support can be uploaded with other documents, or can be emailed by the advisor directly to paulkemp@hawaii.edu.

The application deadline is 30 April, 2008!