Educational Opportunities at UCSC

Educational opportunities at UC Santa Cruz generally parallel those at the other consortium campuses. Training and education involves an integration of PISCO research (both the process and the findings), associated independent student research, and relevant curricula. The first of seven components includes undergraduate volunteers. This is a sizeable program involving approximately 50 undergraduate volunteers each year that participate in fieldwork, laboratory processing and analysis of samples and data management. Based on evaluation of their participation in this program and their academic performance, a few undergraduates are hired each year as undergraduate research interns. As the second component of the education program, these interns may work work part-time during the academic year and full-time during the summer months. Participation usually involves increasing responsibilities extending from their volunteer participation. These responsibilities often involve associated individual research projects, many of which result in undergraduate senior theses.

Graduate Student Training and Education

The core of the graduate training program includes support of graduate student researchers (GSR) directly associated with the PISCO research program. These students are partially funded to participate in various aspects of the overall research effort and, in addition, develop masters and doctoral research topics that address questions of interest to the overall PISCO program. Both aspects of their involvement are fundamental to the success of PISCO at UCSC. A second aspect of graduate training is the PISCO Graduate Student Conservation Science Fund. This fund, generated from overhead returned by UCSC, supports graduate research on coastal conservation science topics that has not been identified as goals of the PISCO program. To date, this program has funded one student.

post-doctoral researchers

The four post-doctoral researchers that have been supported by PISCO-UCSC participate as directors of various components of the consortium-wide program, leads on UCSC led research projects, undergraduate and graduate student mentors, and contribute to teaching PISCO relevant curricula.

Lecture Courses

The sixth component is the integration of PISCO with undergraduate and graduate courses that train students in marine ecology and conservation science at UCSC. These courses include Marine Ecology (160), Marine Ecology Field Studies (160-L), Conservation in the Sea (80-M), Kelp Forest Ecology (161 and 161-L), Marine Ecology Field Quarter (162: a 3 course field quarter), and Graduate Seminars in Basic and Applied Marine Ecology (280-A). An overview of each of these courses is available at our UCSC laboratory web page.

These lecture courses are designed to teach the conceptual basis of marine ecology and conservation science, while the lab courses train students in the taxonomy of marine organisms and field methods for conducting monitoring and experimental studies in intertidal and subtidal ecosystems.

Continued Training and Education

The seventh component highlights the continued training and education received by PISCO technicians. These are usually full-time post-graduate technicians with bachelors or masters degrees that are trained in the various methods and approaches used by PISCO to conduct ecological and oceanographic studies of the intertidal, subtidal and coastal ocean environment. These are skills that will enhance their technical and professional careers during and subsequent to their employment with PISCO.