Performing Department
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Non Technical Summary
Our goal is to recruit, retain, and mentor a cohort of PhD students from historically underrepresented populations to address the Targeted Expertise Shortage Area of Plant Production through a focus on integrating plant microbiomes with plant genetics. Plant microbiomes are vastly understudied, but provide important services to plants such as increased stress tolerance, improved nutrition, and enhanced disease resistance - traits that will be key to growing more food with fewer inputs under increasingly more extreme climates. Plant microbiomes therefore represent a tremendous opportunity to advance sustainable agriculture, but to reach that goal requires significant cross-disciplinary expertise. We propose to train students to work at the intersection of plant genetics and microbiology using a teosinte-maize introgression population as a case study to jointly map the genetics of plant traits and microbes. Core academic and research efforts will equip students with state-of-the-art field, molecular, and genetic tools and transferable skills in data science, bioinformatics, and statistics that are needed to meet current and future challenges to agroecosystem productivity. Fellows will identify individual goals and explore career paths through training in extension, leadership, industry, and teaching. Additional professional development workshops address diversity and inclusion, communication, writing, time management, and conflict resolution. Fellows will be mentored by a collaborative group of 11 faculty in four graduate programs, as well as by industry stakeholders. This program is aligned with USDA's 2022-2026 Strategic Plan, including goals (1.2) Lead Efforts to Adapt to Consequences of Climate Change in Agriculture and Forestry, and (2.3) Foster Agricultural Innovation.
Animal Health Component
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Research Effort Categories
Basic
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Applied
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Developmental
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Goals / Objectives
To prepare the next generation of scientists to tackle current and future problems in the Plant Production TESA, our goals are to (1) provide cross-disciplinary academic and research training through cohort-based, experiential learning methods, (2) foster a culture that embraces diverse perspectives and backgrounds that bring new ideas to the table and better enable translational science, and (3) nurture transferable skills in both disciplinary (e.g., data analytics) and essential people (e.g., communication) skills that will prepare students for multiple career pathways. To meet these goals,we will train students at the intersection of plant genetics and microbiology using a teosinte-maize introgression population as a case study to jointly map the genetics of plant traits and microbes. Core academic and research efforts will equip students with state-of-the-art field, molecular, and genetic tools and transferable skills in data science, bioinformatics, and statistics that are needed to meet current and future challenges to agroecosystem productivity. Fellows will identify individual goals and explore career paths through training in extension, leadership, industry, and teaching. Additional professional development workshops address diversity and inclusion, communication, writing, time management, and conflict resolution. Fellows will be mentored by a collaborative group of 11 faculty in four graduate programs, as well as by industry stakeholders.
Project Methods
EffortsAcademic Core - We will prepare Fellows using evidence-based approaches and current best practices. The academic core includes a pre-semester Bootcamp, core coursework, and tailored breadth courses. The Bootcamp will be 2.5 days with five half-day sessions: (1) review basic expectations for graduate school, discuss mentor-mentee contracts, and key resources for health and wellness, conflict reporting, and disability accommodations. (2) carry out initial self-assessments and Individual Development Plans (IDPs) that will be used to explore career goals, identify training needs, and make action plans for each Fellow; (3) time management and mentoring-up workshop; (4) communication workshop; and (5) brief research presentations from rotation labs. Four core courses will develop the Fellows' ability to manage, analyze, and integrate the large, diverse datasets associated with plant genetics, plant phenotyping, and microbiomes and prepare students to continuously evaluate and adopt state-of-the-art methods to best address future challenges. Course 1 introduces students to general data science workflows for genomics. Course 2 addresses the major analytical problems in plant genomics and how to address these problems with sequence-based analyses. Course 3 focuses on how to manage and analyze microbiome data. Course 4 deals with neural networks and deep learning that can be used to integrate multi-omics and phenotype data. All four courses take an active learning approach that provides students with foundational knowledge and experience with key programming and analytical tools. Two breadth courses will be required to expand conceptual and practical knowledge.Research Core - Fellows will gain hands-on experience with fieldwork, data collection, lab work, and data analysis through four training workshops centered on a single team research project. The focal project will be the evaluation of traits, including microbiomes, of the "BZea" teosinte introgression population. For this population, ~80 teosinte accessions from several subspecies were introgressed into the temperate inbred B73 maize line through 2 rounds of backcrossing and 3 generations of self-pollination to derive BC2S3 lines that contain 12.5% teosinte in a B73 maize background. There are >1400 lines and all are being sequenced. This population is ideal for the evaluation and genetic mapping of maize traits such as adaptation to nutrient deficiencies and how those traits associate with beneficial and pathogenic microbial taxa and communities. The BZea study facilitates multiple aspects of student training through our planned four-workshop series. Workshop 1 will train Fellows in experimental design, field measurement of BZea phenotypes, and sampling of plant tissues, including tissues for later microbiome analysis. Post-sampling, Fellows will be trained in how to store samples and backup data. Workshop 2 will introduce use of Nanopore sequencing in the field and how to process the data. Workshop 3 will use leaf and root samples collected from the field to train students in DNA extraction and Illumina library preparation for microbiome characterization. Workshop 4 will train Fellows in use of machine learning to analyze drone image data from Workshop 1.Professional Development - Fellows will receive hands-on training in extension, teaching, leadership, and other professional development. The Extension and Engagement Training Workshop will train Fellows engage growers, extension agents, and other stakeholders in applications of agricultural research by exploring ongoing extension research projects, discussing extension career opportunities, role playing science communication with extension research partners, and developing extension research topics. Fellows will be able to explain the mission of applied extension research, describe ways to engage extension partners, and propose ideas for extension research that build upon the fundamental research developed in the Research Core Workshops. Fellows will co-author an extension fact sheet on a research topic to publish on the NCSU Soil Microbiome Extension page. Following the workshop, Fellows will attend a combination of field days, on-farm demonstrations, winter grower meetings, and extension conferences to reinforce extension skills. In addition, Fellows will attend the Leadership Learning Institute (LLI) run by the NCSU Graduate School and earn a Leadership Certificate. This LLI program consists of four short courses taught as one session per week: (1) Self-Awareness (Leadership 101, DISC and Behaviors, Emotional Intelligence), (2) Communication (Communication Styles, Handling Conflict and Difficult Conversations, Leading with Clarity), (3) Influence (Team Leadership, Employee Engagement, Leading Others), and (4) Purpose (Start with WHY, Values in Leadership, The Authentic Leader). In addition, students will have at least one career coaching session, develop a LinkedIn profile, complete self-assessments (DISC, EQi) to help develop their leadership style, and participate in a leadership experience the fall after completing the LLI. Training in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion will include three modules offered by the Office for Institutional Equity and Diversity: (1) Diversity, Inclusion, & Communicating Respect, (2) Inclusive Leadership and Best Practices for the Workplace, and (3) Cultural Competence for Inclusivity. Finally, Fellows will take two Graduate School Writing Workshops, addressing (1) How to Craft Abstracts & Introductions and (2) How to Structure Results and Discussion Sections. In addition to the prescribed training, Fellows will be able to pursue tailored training to meet their needs.EvaluationProgram success will be assessed in several ways. Academic success will be indicated by completion of required coursework, number of interdisciplinary courses taken beyond requirements, and applications of learned data analytic skills to dissertation research problems. Research success will be reflected in the number of peer-reviewed publications, authorship on collaborative publications, small research grants awarded, and number of research presentations given. Extension expertise will be demonstrated by authorship on extension fact sheets or publications, and number of extension events attended. Leadership and professional skills development will be shown by Fellows' Leadership Certification, leadership roles, completion of required professional development workshops, and number of additional optional trainings. Outcome reporting will be annual via a Google Forms system implemented by PD Hawkes, who will also maintain a database of metrics to enable comparisons over time.Programmatic evaluation will consider impacts on traditional metrics of student success (e.g., retention in program, time to graduation, post-program retention in the workforce, publication rate), measures of student perception (e.g., sense of belonging, inclusiveness, engagement, satisfaction), and other accomplishments as outlined above. Post-graduation, we will send annual information requests for 3 years. All metrics will be compared to broader outcomes, both institution-wide and for the graduate programs in this proposal, as well as to NCSU student perception surveys. The programmatic evaluation will be summarized in a white paper for use in decision making on how to more broadly adopt targeted interdisciplinary training in areas of need and to do so in a way that enables diverse participation. Finally, both research and program findings will be made publicly available via posting on NCSU websites and advertising on social media.