Core disciplinary curriculum
In academic year 1, NRT trainees enroll in department-specific core graduate courses in the niche areas of excellence associated within our NRT research theme, for example:
- biomolecular condensates and mechanistic cell biology (BIO)
- soft matter and biological physics (PHY)
- solid mechanics and active materials (MAE)
- biomaterials and engineered biomedical systems (BMCE)
- structural/physical biochemistry and materials chemistry (CHE)
NRT-specific courses
In AY2-3, NRT trainees take three courses specific to the EmIRGE-Bio curriculum. Each of these use the evidence-driven “Team-Based Learning” (TBL) pedagogical approach, shown to improve outcomes across the achievement spectrum and enhance student retention, self-efficacy, and sense of belonging and STEM identity. TBL pedagogies and processes model the collaborative work and strong networks that reduce the risk of marginalizing and hiding talent, model collaborative team-based work environments, and produce NRT trainees prepared to bring this culture to their future workplaces.
Course 1. BioInspired Communication and Ethics
Foundational course (Fall AY2) that aims to achieve four primary learning outcomes:
- Provide scaffolding for working effectively on diverse teams
- Interact with literature focused on cutting-edge research in biological/bio-inspired systems
- Participate in the entire research workflow, from literature review to proposal preparation and scientific presentations
- Learn scientific ethics principles, including theory and practice of peer review/evaluation, dual-use research, biomatter, and research misconduct.
Course 2. Emergent Intelligence in Biology and Materials
This course (Spring AY2) examines how local interactions affect emergent behavior and explains how systems can tune these local interactions in a systematic way to drive learning and intelligence.
- Emergent dynamics of macromolecules that phase separate to form biomolecular condensates
- Emergent behaviors of multicellular biological systems,
- Physical learning in networks and neurons
- Fluid-solid phase transitions in cellular collectives
Course 3. STEM Entrepreneurship
The existing course “Entrepreneurship in Engineering and Science” (EEE630) in Whitman School of Management (Fall AY3) is tailored for students with a technical background and covers the intersection of engineering, science, and entrepreneurship.
- Types of technologies, technology life cycles
- Business ethics, and intellectual property
- Customer discovery, design thinking, financial modeling, and pitching