Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) Program. Initiated by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1997 and now comprising approximately 100 award sites, the IGERT program is designed to educate American Ph.D. scientists, engineers, and educators with the interdisciplinary backgrounds, deep knowledge in chosen disciplines, and technical, professional, and personal skills to become the leaders and creative agents for change. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education - for students, faculty, and institutions, by establishing innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries. It is also intended to facilitate greater diversity in student participation and preparation, and to contribute to the development of a diverse, globally-engaged science and engineering workforce.

• Arts, Media and Engineering (AME)
  The IGERT award at the Arts, Media and Engineering Program will develop research and training mechanisms for the creation of a new class of media scientists. These scientists will produce new approaches for the integration of computational elements and digital media in the physical human experience. Their work will result in experiential media systems - hybrid physical-digital environments that address significant challenges in key areas of the human condition such as health, education and everyday living.
  
  For further information, please the Insight article at www.asu.edu/news/stories/200510/20051012_mediaresearch.htm.
• Biomolecular Nanotechnology
  This program forms a union of the most sophisticated aspects of biotechnology, nanofabrication, materials science, nanoelectronics, biochemistry, and biophysics. The leaders of this rapidly growing technology will be engineers and scientists who can bring together the adaptive resilience of living systems with the speed and computational capabilities of electronics and optics.
• Neural and Musculoskeletal Adaptation Form and Function
  The goal of this program is to introduce Ph.D. students with diverse biological and engineering backgrounds to the challenges of deciphering complex phenomena in neuroscience, biomechanics, rehabilitation, and musculoskeletal morphology, and to foster interdisciplinary education and training in research efforts toward meeting these challenges.
• Urban Ecology
  The main objective of this program is to educate a new kind of research scientist who is broader, more flexible, more collaborative, and more adept at linking issues in the life, earth, and social sciences than heretofore. Fellows earn Ph.D.s in one of six core departments: biology, plant biology, geography, geology, anthropology, or sociology. Fellows select a complementary discipline in addition to their degree-granting field. The Central Arizona-Phoenix (CAP) Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) project provides an established research infrastructure.