The NDSU CHANGE program provides mentored research experiences to recent college graduates. Participants in the CHANGE network join a cohort of trainees in a robust training environment that provides professional development and mentorship from a diverse network of biologists from Universities, federal government, industry, and nonprofits.

Mentees will participate in integrative research projects exploring how different levels of biological organization function to enable (or inhibit) organisms to succeed in changing environments. Most organisms experience and respond to predictable environmental changes across the day and year. However, over a relatively short time-span, human influences have led to an increase in unpredictable perturbations that have increasingly altered the timing and occurrence of previously predictable daily (e.g. noise, light) and seasonal (climate) changes. While some individuals and populations of the same species are adjusting to these anthropogenic-induced changes, others may not, and there is a growing appreciation that a comprehensive understanding of this variation in resilience will require an integrative approach across levels of analyses.

As part of a community of biologists, participants in the CHANGE program will work on projects that enhance our understanding of  how organisms interact, anticipate, and respond to changing environments.