Education Commons^™

Sustainability Science Graduate Students As Boundary Spanners, Soencer Meyer, Vanessa Levesque, Karen H. Bieluch, Michelle Johnson, Bridie Mcgreavy, Stacia J. Dreyer, Hollie Smith

Publications

Graduate training in sustainability science (SS) focuses on interdisciplinary research, stakeholder-researcher partnerships, and creating solutions from knowledge. But becoming a sustainability scientist also requires specialized training that addresses the complex boundaries implicit in sustainability science approaches to solving social-ecological system challenges. Using boundary spanning as a framework, we use a case study of the Sustainability Solutions Initiative (SSI) at the University of Maine to explicate key elements for graduate education training in SS. We used a mixed-methods approach, including a quantitative survey and autoethnographic reflection, to analyze our experiences as SSI doctoral students. Through this research, we identified four essential …