NSF Biogeosciences Program: Opportunities at Multiple Levels

Submitted by Biogeosciences Working Group

Recognizing the growing research and educational challenges posed by bridging the Earth and life sciences, the US National Science Foundation has begun a new program in Biogeosciences. Biogeosciences is the study of the fundamental interactions between life and the Earth's atmosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere, and potentially includes such life on other planets. The new program is housed in the Division of Earth Sciences, but cuts across all the divisions in NSF's Geosciences Directorate and will likely interface with other Directorates as well. This is in clear recognition of the fundamental interdisciplinary nature of biogeosciences that includes all spatial and temporal scales and physical regimes (not just aquatic, terrestrial, etc). The first Program Announcement was issued in Fall 2002 with a December 2002 deadline and focused on geomicrobial processes, a subset of the biogeosciences.

An outside Working Group has been formed to examine how the Biogeosciences Program might further develop within NSF. In this respect, the group needs input from the community on a variety of issues that they will be considering, including the following broad "categories":

1. Scientific (e.g., What aspects of biogeosciences should be addressed by the new NSF program? What new or existing approaches can be applied? How does one accurately link paleo and modern studies?).
2. Pedagogic (e.g., Is the US system prepared/able to educate students to undertake rigorously interdisciplinary research? Can biogeosciences provide a framework for scientific inquiry/education at the K-12 levels?).
3. Infrastructure (e.g., How can efforts with various funding agencies be combined and enhanced? Can panels and reviewers be found to evaluate interdisciplinary research? What are the communication venues, publications and meetings, for biogeoscience research?).

Members of the Biogeosciences Working Group are:

• Greg Cutter, Chair (gcutter@odu.edu);
• Sherry Cady (cadys@pdx.edu);
• Katrina Edwards (kedwards@whoi.edu);
• Rob Jackson (jackson@duke.edu);
• Tim Lyons (lyonst@missouri.edu);
• Ken Nealson (knealson@usc.edu);
• Charles Rice (cwrice@ksu.edu);
• Sybil Seitzinger (sybil@imcs.rutgers.edu);
• Roger Summons (rsummons@mit.edu); and
• Susan Trumbore (setrumbo@uci.edu).

We encourage you to contact any of these members with your feedback on the evolving Biogeosciences Program, particularly since NSF will be issuing another Announcement in fall 2003. In this respect, the cognizant NSF program manager is Rachael Craig (rcraig@nsf.gov) who also would be pleased to receive your comments and suggestions on the new program. The next meeting of the Working Group will be in late May 2003, so contact the members listed above with your ideas.