FACT Fellowship

FAIR Cyber Training (FACT) Fellowship for Climate and Water

Solving the grand challenges posed by improving food and water security, in the face of growing population pressure, natural disasters, and climate change, requires expert knowledge of science and engineering fundamentals as well as advanced data analytics and computational methods. Funded by the NSF, our project’s goal is to train students to analyze geoscience related data, develop computational workflows, use high performance computing (HPC) for scientific simulations and publish digital products--including data and models--following the best practices in Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) science as articulated by many scientific institutions, including the American Geophysical Union, American Academy for the Advancement of Science and the National Science Foundationcience Foundation.

We are recruiting the second cohort of graduate students in the United States to partner with the project team in using cyber or web-based tools for their research. These students, FAIR Cyber Training (FACT) fellows, will be trained in accessing, analyzing and publishing data and/or simulation tools using FAIR or open science principles. A list of past FACT fellows and their projects can be found at: https://fairhub.org/fellowship/fellows2020 and https://fairhub.org/fellowship/2021fellows The fellowship provides $2000 honorarium that is paid in installments after meeting the fellowship requirements listed below.

Fellowship Requirements/Deliverables

The FACT fellow will:

  • attend a virtual Cyber Training workshop or webinar series in May 2022.
  • work with his/her graduate advisor and Purdue mentors to conduct research using FAIR principles. This FACT research could be part of their ongoing MS or PhD work.
  • participate in quarterly virtual meetings with project team at Purdue University to give updates and/or seek technological help.
  • use a mix of open source tools, including but not limited to mygeohub.org, hydroshare.org and github.org, in their FACT research to comply with FAIR best practices.
  • create or help create cyber training materials based on the work accomplished through this fellowship.

Eligibility and Application Process

A graduate student at any US institution is eligible to apply. While PhD students will be given preference, strong applications for cyber training from MS students are welcome. The fellowship will start in May 2022 and will last for one year.

Send your application package (single pdf file) containing the following material to vmerwade@purdue.edu by March 30, 2022.

  1. CV of the student
  2. Two page project description including why/how/what cyber tools will be used and plan for training peers at home institution. Training plan could include creating training materials based on your FACT project or conducting a short workshop for using open source tools for water and/or climate research
  3. Letter of support from graduate advisor