Summer 2023 NSF-REU Cohort Selected and Research is Underway.

We were delighted by the large number of competitive applications received for the first summer of our REU program titled, “The Socio-Ecological Role of Greenways in Urban Systems -An Interdisciplinary Approach” (SERGUS).

Despite the challenges inherent in choosing only 10 participants from a large pool of highly skilled individuals, we are pleased to announce that we successfully completed our selection process at the end of March, 2023. Congratulations to our first SERGUS Cohort! (Pictured below.) To those who were not selected this time, we urge you to keep pursuing your goals and encourage you to consider reapplying in the next application cycle for summer 2024.

After arriving safely to The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) at the end of May, the students enthusiastically completed their orientation week. They received tours of the campus and familiarized themselves with their housing and work spaces. I had a great time meeting each of them remotely at the on-boarding session, which provided the students with a comprehensive overview of the SERGUS program’s activities, expectations, and research objectives. After the first week, the students dove into conducting interdisciplinary research to assess the socio-ecological characteristics of three greenways in Chattanooga.

We are grateful to the Assistant GIS Director, Nyssa Hunt (pictured below), at UTC’s Interdisciplinary Geospatial Technology Lab for helping to introduce the students to ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Field Maps in the first couple weeks.

We’d like to also thank all of our other speakers for sharing their career path stories and presenting the students with valuable information on a wide variety of interdisciplinary topics, such as:

Week 1 – General welcome to UTC (Dr. Gretchen Potts, Department Head of UTC Biology, Geology, and Environmental Sciences [BGE]) (Pictured below)

Week 2 – The history of the Chattanooga greenways and the city’s plans for future greenspace development (Blythe Bailey, Director of Design and Connectivity at Chattanooga Parks and Outdoors) (Pictured below)

Week 3 – Beetle diversity (Dr. Stylianos Chatzimanolis, UTC BGE) (Pictured below)

Week 4 – The Green New Deal and how it may apply to Chattanooga (Dr. Lucy Schultz from UTC Philosophy and Religion and Dr. Jeremy Strickler from UTC Political Science and Public Service) (Pictured below)

Week 5 – Urban green infrastructure (Lyn Rutherford, Water Green Infrastructure Vegetation Management and Sustainable Landscaping Quality Specialist II at City of Chattanooga, TN; and Erin Duffy, Chattanooga City Landscaper) (Pictured below)

We are now halfway through the REU 10-week program (wrapping up week 5) and the students have had many professional experiences – gaining skills in a variety of socio-ecological lab and field techniques, along with personal experiences, as they explore Chattanooga.

So far, everything is progressing very smoothly, in part thanks to our amazing graduate student logistics coordinator, Hunter Smith (pictured on far left in image below). We are excited for the students to transition out of data collection mode into data analysis and data interpretation mode in the coming weeks. The students will work together to compile their findings and policy suggestions into a final presentation that will be presented to the Chattanooga Department of Parks and Outdoors and other city stakeholders in the last week of the program.

Ultimately, the results will provide insights on Chattanooga’s ecological and social health, and guide future community policy decisions related to the greenway networks.