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overview
Conventional tools and techniques used
to measure environmental processes and fluxes are inadequate
for resolving the many fine-scaled spatial and temporal
phenomena required by emerging theories. The 1st generation
response to this shortcoming was remote-sensing, providing
excellent synoptic coverage of phenomena but lacking
the requisite resolution to elucidate small-scale, and
often dominant environmental processes. The 2nd generation
response and that embraced by the proposed REU site,
is the deployment of small, robust, and inexpensive
networks of sensors. Achieving the purported benefits
of this evolution in sampling and analysis requires
truly multidisciplinary teams of engineers and scientists.
This
forms the premise of the proposed REU. Each summer,
12 undergraduates will come to the California State
University Los Angeles (CSULA)
for an intensive training and research program aimed
at developing and implementing cutting-edge networks
of sensors for the study of environmental processes
(see examples of our past work here).
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| REU
students will become an integral part of four sub-projects of
the Center for Environmental Analysis (CEA-CREST),
which unifies faculty from the departments of Biology,
Chemistry,
Civil
Engineering, Geography
and Urban Analysis, and Geology.
The REU students will include engineers with the skills to develop
and implement sensors and sensor networks and scientists with
insight into the underlying biogeochemical concepts in each
sub-project. Together, these students will build upon extant
data and resources by adding networks of data acquisition sensors
to provide extraordinarily rich and comprehensive data. Our
Site will be modeled after the successful framework of collaboration
fostered within CEA-CREST. We are also collaborating with engineers
and scientists from The
Center for Embedded Networked Sensing at UCLA, the Sierra
Nevada Research Institute at UC Merced and the Oak
Crest Institute of Science (Oak Crest). Together, our team
of investigators has expertise ranging from fundamental lab
and field scientific investigations to the design, fabrication
and deployment of sensors for environmental sensing. The CEA-CREST
sub-projects involved with this REU program including the following
(click here to get a more
detailed description):
·
Biogeochemical Cycling of Nutrients in a Natural Water System
· Engineering a New Empirical Grounding of Intertidal
Ecology
· Ecological and Evolutionary Consequences of Sperm
Chemoattraction
· Monitoring Changing Productivity and Diversity using
Multi-Scale Remote Sensing
In
addition to these sub-projects, we have a number of other
projects that require both science and engineering expertise.
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