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Faculty
and Student Teams Program
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Project Descriptions
Brookhaven
National Laboratory
Requesting applications from science or engineering
faculty members at institutions serving students underrepresented in science,
engineering, mathematics and technology, to work on developing software tools to
provide decision support for environmental problems such as contaminated land
reuse.
Project Description
Many environmental problems involve different
stakeholders with different value systems.
For example, environmental contamination problems involve the
problem owner, regulatory agencies, workers, and the public.
Decision-making on these types of complex problems involves
consideration of multiple objectives (e.g., environmental, ecological,
technological, economic, and socio-political factors) relevant to
evaluating and selecting among management alternatives.
This complexity often requires making decisions based on multiple
criteria with different metrics (e.g., human health, cost, ecological
risk, etc.).
Formal approaches to decision-making will help
minimize decisions based on intuition or bias-driven and will generally
lead to a more effective and fair decision. To effectively make a
structured and defensible decision requires a systematic and
understandable framework to organize the people, processes, and tools for
making the decision.
The overarching goal of this program will be to
develop a multi-criteria decision software tool into which the output of
various process models will be valued, integrated, and evaluated in an
unbiased decision process. The
tool should be modular in structure and flexible.
There are many types of decision and decision processes.
It is critical that this tool be extremely user friendly and
provide information relevant to the needs of the user.
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Task 1:Development of a Decision Framework and Approach
to Integrate Ecological, Human Health, and Social Impacts into a Decision
Analysis Tool. The first
task will develop a Work Plan that will include the strategy, scope,
objectives and technical approaches to the specific tasks to be performed.
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Task 2: Model Selection and Development.
Model selection and development will begin with a literature
review and an analysis of existing models and approaches to analogous
problems. Based on this
review, selection of the models for this project will be made.
When appropriate models and methodologies exist, they will be
adapted to this project. In
some cases, new models and methodologies will be developed.
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Task 3: Software Development.
This task will begin with a literature review of available software
products that might be adapted for use in the project.
Priority will be give to selecting freeware.
Based on this review, software will be modified and developed to
fit the needs of this project.
This task will include programming, verification, and calibration
as well as the development of an intuitive graphical user interface.
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Task 4: Case Studies.
The methodology and software will be applied to two case studies to
demonstrate its effectiveness and provide the basis for communicating its
utility in future application.
This
is a three year project that will begin in March, 2006.
The students and faculty would be most heavily involved with task
3. Software development will
be a web-based program that allows remote access to all of the software
tools and databases in the program. It
will have a graphical user interface (GUI) to assist the user in
conceptual model development, data analysis, data base management, and
interpretation. Students will
need to know Java as well as other modern programming languages.
Applicants Responsibilities
and Relationship to Project Applicants will
receive support under the Department of Energy Faculty Student Team
Research Program (FaST) to work collaboratively with the project research
team at BNL for up to 10 weeks during the year starting in June of 2006,
Summer and academic year visits to BNL will be scheduled by mutual
agreement between staff in the Environmental Research department and the
successful applicant. Ideally faculty will work at BNL on the project for
10 weeks during the summer in the first year. Faculty will be expected to
identify students from their campus to participate in the FaST program
offered by the Department of Energy at BNL. Faculty will provide some
mentorship and/or advising support to students during the summer research
activities. It is expected that the Faculty member will become an integral
part of the research team working on this project and will support the
project through the academic year on her or his campus.
Qualifications of Ideal Candidate
| Faculty: | Ph.D. with experience in
application of computer models to environmental science problems.
Works well in a collaborative environment with students and other
researchers. Currently teaches and collaborates with students in his/her
field. Possesses good written
and verbal communication skills. Willing
to work at BNL for an extended period during the summer. |
| Student: | Working towards a BS in
engineering or BA in science with an emphasis on computer science. Works
well in collaboration with faculty, other students, and researchers. Possesses
good written and verbal communication skills.
Willing to work at BNL for an extended period. Willing to perform
data collection in the field. |
Support
and Financial Commitments See Financial
Information.
For More Information contact:
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