About WaterCube
Water resources and aquatic ecosystems around the world face increasing challenges and risks from climate change, natural and anthropogenic disasters, harmful algal blooms, and changes in land use. Recent advances in sensors, robotics, genomics, and computational modeling generate an amount and variety of data related to water at all scales.
These data offer a tremendous opportunity for revolutionizing scientific understanding and management of water resources; however, the challenges associated with the volume, heterogeneity, and uncertainty of the data pose a significant barrier for translating science into action. The WaterCube program was designed to prepare a competent workforce for addressing future sustainability and socio-economic challenges in water. We believe that solving complex, real-world water problems takes synergistic advancement and integration of data science, water science, and social science.
WaterCube is a National Research Traineeship (NRT) program funded by the National Science Foundation.
Our Goals
- Train Ph.D. students who are:
- competent in the knowledge, understanding, and practice of issues at the intersection of data science, water science, and social science;
- well-versed in cross-disciplinary research collaboration; and
- well prepared for diverse career options.
- Create a convergent research paradigm that enables breakthroughs in addressing challenging, pressing water problems by merging the expertise and talent from broad backgrounds, and conversely, propels advancement of disciplines in data science, water science, and social science.
- Establish and disseminate a novel, generalizable approach to graduate training in big data-enabled water sustainability and equity.
