Another example, you may want to work in the field of hydrology, however the University of Alaska has no formal graduate program in hydrology, but you can still go through the interdisciplinary route. Although no academic programs are administered through WERC, the Water and Environmental Research Center still plays a dominant role in the education of graduate students working in water related fields. Most of these graduate students work on research projects administered through the Center, in almost all cases the students receive research stipends. The Center also aids the students education by providing an environment for interacting with faculty and other graduate students through the availability of office and laboratory space, shared laboratory and computer equipment, and through seminars. Although most of our students are the MS level, we generally have 4 or 5 ongoing PhD students conducting research.
Research projects vary from substantial fieldwork to primarily modeling and any combination thereof.
We have several graduate assistantships available for projects related to Ground water Dynamics, Surface Water Hydrology and Geomorphology or Fluvial Processes. We are a multidisciplinary research institute with specialists focusing upon many aspects of water resources including limnology, geochemistry, oceanography, hydrogeology, hydraulics, microbiology, and hydrology. We draw students from Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Quality Science, Geology, Geophysics, Mathematics, Marine Science, Natural Resources Management, Forestry and Chemistry. We currently have several interacting projects investigating physical, chemical and biologic processes occurring in arctic and subarctic watersheds. Some of our interests include hydrologic and thermal modeling, scaling relationships, trophic structure dynamics, nutrient cycling, wetland science and active layer dynamics.