Transdisciplinary Team Grand Challenge: Water

The Graduate School is pleased to announce the next Transdisciplinary Team Grand Challenge: Water. Society’s dependence on water has created a water crisis on multiple fronts. As global population increases, so has demand for potable water. A rising demand for energy, combined with an aging infrastructure and changes in land use practices, have impacted water availability. Meanwhile, climate variability has resulted in widespread and unprecedented levels of flooding and drought. The problems of an inadequate water supply, unhealthy watersheds, and degraded habitats cannot be tackled by researchers in individual disciplines, but instead require teams of scholars to work together across disciplines with community partners to develop optimal solutions. Our challenge to UTSA’s graduate student researchers is to work together to propose conceptual projects addressing any aspect of water, including broad topics such as watershed protection or equitable access to water and narrower topics such as measurement of contaminants at point of pollution sites or campaigns to promote awareness of safe water recreation.

Teams should be formed in groups of 3-5 students from at least two different programs in two different colleges. Student groups will work together on a transdisciplinary proposal to address an issue associated with water. Project proposals can cover a wide variety of topical areas, including but not limited to access to safe drinking water, aquatic ecosystems, monitoring and modeling of water resources and climate, aquifer sustainability, and more.

For a full list of rules, guidelines, and deadlines please click here.

Interested in hearing from previous participants? Watch the video below to learn about the benefits and impact of participation.