Image of graduate student holding a petri dish to the light. Image of undergraduate and graduate student at the Montana Biofilm Meeting Image of faculty member and graduate student looking at a thermal spring in Yellowstone.

 

Montana State University’s Extreme Biofilms NRT program is a university-wide community of doctoral studentswith a focused professional development and graduate traininginbiofilms found in extreme environments.  

We are seeking incoming doctoral students and those whose PhD thesis defense is scheduled for no earlier than January 2026. Students from the following departments are eligible to apply for NRT stipend support: Microbiology and Cell Biology, Chemical Engineering, Biochemistry, Computer Science, Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, and Plant Sciences.We seek students  who are interested in understanding and predicting the observable characteristics of biofilms in extreme biofilms and whose research careers would benefit from participating in our two required NRT core courses. This NRT program includes research that uses cutting edge approaches that span multiple scales of observation to elucidate genome to phenome microbial interactions of microorganisms in extreme environments. Our program combines interdisciplinary education with cutting edge research approaches from diverse disciplines (e.g., meta-omics-based approaches and high-resolution imaging) to enable our participants to develop an understanding of intricate and cross-cutting interactions in multispecies and multi-domain biofilms. 

NOTE: This traineeship program is open to all students. There are a limited number of fellowships opportunities each year; however, per NSF regulations, only U.S. Citizens and Permanent Residents are eligible to receive tuition and stipend support through the NRT fellowships. 

NRT trainees working in Yellowstone National Park during their 'Frontiers in Extreme Biofilms' NRT course. NRT trainees and faculty plan their field sampling trip during the NRT annual retreat in Big Sky Montana.