Briefly, EIGER Fellows are expected to:

1)   complete the three EIGER core courses,
2)   be a member of an interdisciplinary research team, 
3)   participate in one or two external internships with participating laboratories, with emphasis on traveling abroad,
4)   participate in other EIGER activities, including selected aspects of Advisory Board meetings, Distinguished Speaker visits, assessment activities, the professional preparation cluster, and EIGER administrative and social events,
5)   make satisfactory progress in all aspects of the PhD program in the student’s home department, and
6)   remain connected to EIGER through assessment, ePortfolio, and seminar/meeting activities after EIGER funding is completed, up to the time of PhD completion. 

RESEARCH INTERNSHIPS

Research internships for all EIGER Fellows are a vital part of the program. Fellows will spend three to six months at up to two institutions based, where possible, in international locations emphasizing our commitment to developing a global research perspective.  EIGER will implement, whenever possible, a novel approach called “paired internships,” in which two students with related research, but in different disciplines, will jointly undertake two internships, one in a lab closely related to the work of each of the student.  The paired internships should result in scientists and engineers who are substantially “cross-trained,” something that should influence their entire careers in interdisciplinary interfacial science. Additional details are available in the Student Handbook (insert link to pdf file under the “Student Handbook” text). 

Choices of institutions include, but are not limited to, the following:

Center for Neutron Research, National Institute of Standards and Tech., Gaithersburg, MD, USA Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Melbourne, Australia
Department of Geology, Peking University, Beijing, China
Department of Geotechnical Engineering, University of Sao Paulo, Sao Carlos, Brazil
Environmental Molecular Sciences Lab, Pacific Northwest National Labs, Richland, WA
Institute for Biological Structure and Microbiology, CNRS, Marseille, France
Geotechnical and Environmental Research Group, University of Cambridge, England
Institute for Mineralogy, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
Limnological Research Center, Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (EAWAG), Kastanienbaum, Switzerland
NanoGeoScience Center, Geological Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Williamson Research Centre for Molecular Environmental Science, Univ. of Manchester, England