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 students. The current departments involved in this NRT include: Microbiology and Cell Biology, Chemical and Biological Engineering, and Chemistry and Biochemistry with focused professional development and graduate training in biofilms found in extreme environments.  

We are seeking students who have either applied to a PhD program at MSU or who are currently in their first year of their doctoral training at MSU from the following departments: 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 observable characteristics of biofilms in extreme biofilms. This NRT program in Extreme Biofilms includes research that uses cutting edge technological approaches that span multiple scales of observation to elucidate genome to phenome microbial interactions 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 a mechanistic 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.