13 August 2008
Students Work on Fish and Wildlife Challenges Back Home
Faculty, student-centered approach, community are key at Virginia Tech
This is the third story in a series on top-ranked programs in higher education.
Washington --Seventeen percent of the graduate students in a renowned fisheries and wildlife sciences department at a U.S. university come from outside the United States.
They come from Austria, Canada, Indonesia, Mexico, China, Thailand and Taiwan. Sometimes they research or manage birds, mammals, reptiles or amphibians. Sometimes they research or manage aquatic animals and ecosystems, including shellfish, endangered species, sport fish and aquaculture fish.
The international graduate students work with American students at Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources, specifically in its Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences, one of the oldest and most highly regarded programs of its kind in the United States.
Professor Eric Hallerman, who heads the department, said students benefit from immersion in a program of fisheries, wildlife and conservation sciences, with all that entails: classes, seminars, field and laboratory experience, local chapters of the fisheries and wildlife professional societies. They also gain “interpersonal relationships with students and faculty from many world regions,” he said.
Virginia Tech’s (VT’s) campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, is in a mountainous area of the state. Powapol Kongchum, a graduate student from Thailand, said he was attracted to the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences because of its reputation for research -- aquaculture research in particular. Kongchum said the rural campus is beautiful and quiet; he calls it “an ideal place to study.”
“We have a comprehensive program that encompasses all areas of fish and wildlife conservation -- from conservation of endangered species to management of game species,” said Steve McMullin, an associate professor in the department, in an e-mail interview. “Virtually all of the subdisciplines of fisheries and wildlife are addressed by our faculty, including conservation ecology, population dynamics, behavior, habitat modeling, physiology and toxicology, and human dimensions and policy."
“Many of our graduate students work with more than one major adviser, and, because of our comprehensive program, they get broad exposure to the many aspects of wildlife conservation,” he said.
McMullin said that, in addition to the fish and wildlife conservation projects his colleagues are engaged in throughout Virginia and the United States, students and professors work on research projects in Madagascar and other parts of Africa, Mexico, China and the Caribbean.
Among the things that make the fisheries and wildlife program at Virginia Tech special, according to Hallerman, is a “student-centered view” of its mission.
“We aim to turn out the best young professionals that we can, and our students recruit into good positions in the United States and abroad,” said Hallerman, who is also the director of the Horseshoe Crab Research Center. Graduates of the department typically get jobs in government conservation agencies, environmental consulting firms or private land management companies.
Hallerman said the international students tend to “bring back to their home countries and institutions a model of how the profession of fisheries and wildlife conservation is practiced.”
In terms of preparation before entering the graduate school, McMullin believes it “helps if the student has some connections with a conservation organization in his/her home country that could lead to a research question that needs to be addressed there. We are committed to helping wildlife conservation organizations in other countries upgrade the knowledge and skills of their professionals, and we prefer to see international students work on problems in their home countries and to return to their home countries when they finish their graduate work so their countries can benefit from the experience.”
“One of the outstanding research programs here at [Virginia Tech] that attracted me and was the main reason of my decision to pursue my degree here is the genetic improvement of aquaculture species research program,” Kongchum said in an e-mail interview.
Students in the fisheries and wildlife program “have opportunities to work closely with active faculty in the area of their expertise,” he said. “Many faculty members here have research connections and are working with collaborators outside the campus. In my case, I have a good opportunity to conduct my dissertation focusing on mapping of immune response genes for disease resistance in fish.” He is working in a Department of Agriculture laboratory located in West Virginia for cool- and cold-water aquaculture. “Here I have access to modern research equipment and have been mentored closely by [my] research supervisor,” Kongchum said.
“VT has a great support network for international students, and the university is large enough that we have active groups of students from many nations that help their fellow students adjust to life in the United States,” McMullin said.
See also "Thunderbird’s 'MBA On-Demand' Provides a Global Classroom" and "Diverse, Independent Seminary Continues Historic Social Role."
