Bowling Green, Ky. - Narcisa Pricope, a Western Kentucky University graduate geoscience student from Hunedoara, Romania, has been awarded a 2006 IGERT International Associates in Adaptive Management scholarship at the University of Florida. 

The Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program, funded by the National Science Foundation, seeks to train Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the interdisciplinary background and the technical, professional and personal skills needed to address the global questions of the future. 

Pricope has been accepted into the University of Florida Adaptive Management of Water, Wetlands, and Watersheds program, where she will earn her Ph.D. in geography.  Pricope came to WKU’s Department of Geography and Geology after reading a recruitment notice circulated internationally by Dr. Stephen Kenworthy seeking graduate students to work on a funded project in the Green River Basin. 

Pricope, along with Juan Herrera from Manizales, Colombia, applied to work on Dr. Kenworthy’s project and were admitted into the geoscience master’s program in 2004. She is completing her master’s thesis this May on the analytical modeling of watershed changes, has earned a graduate certificate in GIScience (geographic information systems) and has had full responsibility for teaching an introductory Physical Geography course this academic year.

Moreover, Pricope has been active in the Graduate Geoscience Society in the department, has participated in the departmental Bahamas Study Abroad program, and recently returned from a survey trip to Argentina. 

“Narcisa is the epitome of excellence in graduate education,” said department head Dr. David Keeling. “She has mastered a second language, successsfully engaged in her discipline, twice taught a course, and is completing an innovative research thesis on schedule. Students like Narcisa demonstrate the value of reaching out to the international community to recruit talented individuals, and the commitment of the department to enhancing its global reach and preparing students for success in a global society.

“Narcisa’s success in being awarded an IGERT scholarship is a testimony to her talents and to the preparation she has received in the department’s graduate program.”

More information about the geoscience program is online at www.wku.edu/geoweb/gradcrse/gradprogram.htm For more about the IGERT program, visit www.igert.org

More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you’d like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.

For information, contact David Keeling at (270) 745-455.

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