The SESYNC Graduate Pursuits Program is a first-of-its-kind program that supports interdisciplinary, independent, graduate-led research teams. Simultaneous to but apart from their PhD programs, teams conduct data-driven synthesis research over an 18-month period. Teams gain genuine collaborative experiences and skills while contributing to scientific knowledge, solving synthesis problems, and producing peer-reviewed outcomes. Team leaders receive leadership and project management training. Support includes a series of multi-day meetings in Annapolis, MD, sustained virtual engagement, structured mentoring and training from SESYNC staff, and tailored cyberinfrastructure and computational support. A list of Graduate Pursuits can be found here.

25-30 attendees from universities across North America are immersed in a diverse, collaborative environment and provided with tools to broaden their scientific thinking, networks, and practices. Attendees learn how to integrate S-E synthesis concepts, frameworks, materials, and methods into their PhD and master’s research. Attendees also practice essential S-E synthesis skills, including developing interdisciplinary questions, thinking at the systems-level, capturing complex processes in research designs, blending disparate ideas and information, working collaboratively, and communicating research to diverse audiences. Attendees receive leadership training as a critical means of effecting change and advancing synthesis research.

This workshop welcomes 25-30 PhD students from around the world and across disciplines to intensive, interactive training at SESYNC. Workshop sessions and activities are led by noted S-E synthesis scholars and practitioners, and range from the science of team science, to interdisciplinary proposal writing and research design, to science communication and delivering actionable outcomes for stakeholders and decision makers. The workshop equips participants with skills, knowledge, networks, and resources to engage in and advance interdisciplinary science and collaboration. The workshop is designed to prepare graduate students to lead and/or join a Graduate Pursuit team. A former CFA can be found here.

25 PhD students from diverse disciplines and backgrounds gathered together each week for interactive online training focused on a different topics, such as “Enhancing S-E Synthesis Capacities to Promote Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEIJ)” and “Advancing DEIJ with Actionable Science.” Workshop sessions and sustained mentoring helped participants build the skill sets needed to undertake an interdisciplinary research collaboration, while also celebrating the innovation potential and problem-solving capacities gained from embracing diverse backgrounds and identities in team-based S-E synthesis research. See the workshop summary here.