Raising research funding is a challenging, and often highly competitive, part of the graduate school experience. Traditionally, students apply for funding from government grants or foundational fellowships, competing with potentially thousands of other students in need of support. Three graduate students in the ENVS doctoral program have turned to the online fundraising site, Kickstarter, in a creative and innovative effort to fund or "crowdsource" their research in Alaska.
The group are students in Assistant Professor Chris Wilmers' Lab: Ph.D. candidates Taal Levi and Yiwei Wang, and graduate student Rachel Wheat. The research trip to Alaska, if funded, will be used to understand how salmon populations contribute to the ecology of the Alaskan wilderness - from eagles and bears, to plants and soil.
The project and the campaign were the focus of an article in The Santa Cruz Sentinel.
The group needs to achieve their fundraising goal of $10,000 by July 1, otherwise - as per Kickstarter's rules - they will have to forfeit any monetary funds pledged.
If you would like to contribute to their campaign, visit the Alaska Predator Research Expedition page on Kickstarter.com. A video from the group's Kickstarter page, which explains the aims of the research expedition, is below.
