He's hopeful that other academic departments across campus will be able to take advantage of it as well. The statistics department is the recipient of the NSF grant, which will provide financial support for undergraduate and graduate students in statistics and postdoctoral fellows. The grant will eventually provide funding for 14 graduate fellowships, eight postdoctoral fellows and 12 undergraduates. Participants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents to be eligible. Isaacson is seeking candidates for these positions with dual interest in statistics and another academic discipline, thus requiring both departments to pay for only one-fourth of the cost of such an individual.
Postdoctoral fellows can be in the program for up to three years.
The idea is to prepare postdocs to enter an academic career. The structure of the program will also provide graduate students the opportunity to incorporate research and interdisciplinary problem solving into their educational experience at an early stage. Graduate students can be funded for the full five years of the grant. Undergraduate students will be on the Iowa State campus during the summer months and assigned to an ongoing research group. Students will spend the first week of the eight-week program interacting with their working group before working on a research project for the next six weeks.