Dr. Barbara Piperata receives a 3-year NSF IRES Grant to support international research for undergraduate and graduate students at OSU. The International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) program supports international research for U.S. science and engineering students in effort to develop a diverse, globally engaged workforce with world-class skills. The grant, titled “Socio-ecological training in a tropical landscape,” will provide research training for OSU undergraduate and graduate students in Ecuador’s ‘Chocó Biogeographic Zone’, which is one of the world’s top 25 priority regions for protection of biodiversity. Using an interdisciplinary framework, students will evaluate how land-management practices by rural farmers and ranchers influence both environmental and human well-being within a tropical landscape. Piperata will begin recruiting students for the program in the Fall 2020 and will take the first cohort to the field in the summer 2021.