Water Fellows Program

The Water Fellows program is an effort to strengthen collaboration among the water-oriented graduate student body. Water Fellows are a group of self-identified students who are the foundation of the Water Initiative. Water Fellows elect representatives who organize and run the semester lecture series, help organize the Spring Runoff Conference, attend Water Initiative Advisory Committee meetings, and generally provide advice and suggestions about further strengthening the university water community. See the program flyer here.

Enrollment

The Water Fellows program is open to any enrolled graduate student whose focus of education and/or research concerns water. Thus, we encourage participation by students in the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, and engineering. A membership request is initiated by application. Initial decisions about membership will be made by the WI Director, but the Fellows themselves will make subsequent decisions about membership, once the initial core group of students is created.

Benefits

Upon initial selection as a Water Fellow, students receive a $200 award applicable to the purchase of (1) water-related books, and/or (2) a student membership in a water-related professional society. (Books may now be purchased from any bookseller. This eleminates the previous restriction where the books had to be purchased from the USU Bookstore.) In subsequent years, continuing Water Fellows will receive $100 awards, for continuing student membership in a water-related professional society. Water Fellows can also apply annually for a $500 travel grant to defray costs to attend a water-oriented professional meeting. Students are not required to make a presentation at this conference, thereby providing students an opportunity to broaden their experience with interdisciplinary water science, engineering, and the humanities. There will be a cap set on the total amount of all travel grants issued each year by the WI, but this cap has not yet been set.

Requirements and Expectations

Water Fellows are expected to regularly attend WI semester seminars, make presentations at the annual Spring Runoff Conference, and assist in hosting invited speakers. Continuing Water Fellows are expected to have attended most of the previous year's Water Initiative events in order to receive continuing support. As the number of Water Fellows grows, we expect that a subset of students will be elected by their peers to help in various tasks. Fellows will elect 2 representatives to attend meetings of the Water Initiative Advisory Committee.