Curriculum – Common Themes in Reproductive Diversity

The CTRD pre-doctoral curriculum is designed to promote interdisciplinary knowledge and the acquisition of new research skills. It will ensure that students conduct their research ethically and that they meet requirements for the PhD degree in their respective departments and program.

Information is organized according to 1) elements specific and unique to the program, 2) seminar series and informal forums, and 3) program and departmental requirements.

A note about timing and benefits of the curriculum: CTRD trainees are often selected after they finish their coursework. We have fewer fellowships than interested students and consequently these curricular guidelines will sometimes be followed by students prior to their selection for fellowship support. The reasoning here is that for students whose interests match those of the training faculty, the curriculum is ‘its own reward.’ By interacting with one another and the faculty, trainees and potential trainees will learn concepts and techniques that will enable them to conduct outstanding research bearing on Common Themes in Reproductive Diversity.

Predoctoral Training

1) Elements specific and unique to the Training Program

All CTRD trainees receive training beyond existing departmental or university requirements. We offer four CTRD-specific courses, taught by teams of CTRD Training Faculty. These courses meet in the Animal Behavior Program’s seminar room at 409 N. Park Avenue. The Program has a long history of fostering interdisciplinary exchange.

The centerpiece of our training program consists of two courses, one entitled Concepts in Reproductive Diversity and the other entitled Techniques in Reproductive Diversity. Training faculty from different home departments act as organizers.

The Concepts course, Concepts in Reproductive Diversity, is based on an enormously successful program. The Animal Behavior Program has long offered A501, Seminar in Animal Behavior, each semester on rotating topics, and brought hundreds of visiting scientists to campus to interact with several generations of students. Representative Concepts course offerings include the following:

Neuroethology (Smith)
Integrative Study of Animal Behavior (Ketterson)
Integration and Differentiation in Behavioral Development (Alberts)
Female Reproductive Strategies (Ketterson/Martins)
Sensory Ecology (Hurley)
Biological Rhythms and Behavior (Timberlake and Demas)
Epigenetics and Reproductive Behavior (Hackney, Bergeon Burns, Farrell, Ho)
Differences Among the Sexes (Alberts, Demas, Garcia, Hurley, Ketterson, Lively, Rosvall, Sengelaub, Smith, Todd, Wellman, and special guest Art Arnold) [complete description available here]

These classes provide a history of related issues, a set of carefully selected readings, and access to visiting scientists, all of which underscore major advances leading to the current state of understanding in each area. These classes are also designed to help students identify important unanswered questions that could form the basis of significant student research projects, as they design their own projects in solo and in collaborative configurations.

The Techniques course, Techniques in Reproductive Diversity, enables students to gain research skills necessary to their success, e.g., gene arrays, immunoassays, stereology, neuroanatomical methods, gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, evolutionary theory, parentage analysis, bioinformatics, field methods. During Fall 2022, the course is being taught by a variety faculty representing the Departments of Anthropology, Biology, Informatics, Intelligent Systems Engineering, and Psychological and Brain Sciences, as well as the Kinsey Institute.

The Ethics course, Research and Professional Ethics in the Biobehavioral Sciences, A502, includes topics such as scientific misconduct, collaboration and co-authorship, commercialization and intellectual property, animal and human subjects, student-advisor relationships, rigor and reproducibility, data ownership/sharing, and promotion of diversity and equity in the research environment. We use the case-study approach and ethical reasoning framework from Bebeau et al., (1995), which was developed alongside IU faculty members specializing in research ethics. We supplement these case studies with current articles from Nature News, Science Editorials, etc. We teach students to identify the point of conflict, list interested parties, and describe consequences and obligations before deciding how to address ethical issues in science.

In addition to A502, departments participating in CTRD have their own sequences, e.g. Psychological and Brain Sciences offers ethics training through the graduate First-Year Research Seminar. All NIH trainees must receive training in research ethics.

The Professional Development course, Survival Skills in the Sciences, focuses on identifying students’ career goals, recognizing existing skills, discussing interpersonal dynamics, and learning how to obtain new skills necessary to achieve students’ goals. Via activities and presentations, we work with students to develop foundational skills, such as presenting and networking at conferences; manuscript preparation, submission, and peer review; grant writing; navigating academic and non-academic job markets; running a research group (e.g., budgeting, personnel management); and strategic long-term planning for their individualized research vision. We also discuss contemporary issues, such as work/life balance in research careers and strategies for attracting, mentoring, and retaining researchers from historically marginalized groups.

The CTRD Breakfast

This key component to our training environment has a deceptively simple name. We meet monthly during the school year. All trainees and a high proportion of training faculty attend every breakfast. A unique aspect of the ‘presentations’ is that they are billed as interactive, and speakers rarely have the opportunity to complete any prepared remarks. Speakers are interrupted frequently with requests to define terms for an interdisciplinary audience and out of sheer curiosity. The presenters are CTRD trainees and training faculty, IU faculty who are not part of the Training Group, applicants for CTRD post-doctoral traineeships, and visiting scientists (e.g., Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, UC Davis, Elaine Hull, Florida State University, Peg McCarthy, U of Maryland Medical School; Joan Roughgarden, Stanford U, Beverly Strassman, U of Michigan). Highly remembered are the several non-scientists who have spoken, e.g. Nancy Lipschutz from Theatre and Drama who spoke on ‘gendered voices’, and Brenda Casper of Gender Studies who spoke on ‘gendered bodies’. [View the current schedule of speakers]

2) Seminar series and informal forums

Trainees ARE expected to be regular participants in a number of forums that enhance their ability to conduct outstanding research. For example, trainees participate in the weekly meeting of their research groups. Each home department or program has a lunch series, and each year the Animal Behavior Program holds a research symposium. Some trainees will participate in an ongoing exchange program we have with the Keck Center for Behavior Research at NC State, where trainees from our respective schools attend each other’s annual spring conferences. Finally, each participating department hosts 4-5 seminar speakers per week, so that the diligent trainee will have an abundance of weekly seminars from which to choose.

3) Program and departmental requirements

IU is a first-rank research university and consequently all programs and departments emphasize research in their graduate training. All have a preliminary exam, one or more weekly seminar series, a minimum number of distribution requirements, and an expectation of a thesis based on original research.

Many of the CTRD training faculty are from Biology (Evolution Ecology and Behavior, EEB) or Psychological and Brain Sciences (Mechanisms of Behavior, MoB). (Click on the links in the previous sentence to see sample curricula for these 2 programs.)

In addition to their departmental requirements, all graduate students need to complete a minor, and trainees will be expected to minor in Animal Behavior or Human Sexuality.

Students should note that the requirements for these minors overlap with those of home departments and programs, so can often be completed without adding appreciably to your course requirements.

Postdoctoral Training

All elements of the training program will be open to post-doctoral trainees. Postdocs will rarely elect to take classes for credit, but we do require that they participate in and contribute to the “Concepts and Techniques” courses and assist in the teaching of “Professional Ethics for the Bio-behavioral Sciences.”

The Animal Behavior Program offers informal sessions on a regular basis that stress professional skills, e.g., how to review a research proposal or manuscript, how to write a letter to apply for a job, how to prepare a job seminar, or how to negotiate for a position. These sessions will be of particular use to postdoctoral trainees seeking permanent positions. Postdoctoral trainees will be asked to serve as role model researchers sharing their advice and their talents with younger students and while becoming more effective mentors themselves.

NIH Public Access Policy

All peer-reviewed publications authored by CTRD Trainees are subject to the NIH Public Access Policy.

Peer-reviewed articles accepted for publication on/after April 7, 2008 that result in whole or in part from NIH-funded research must be submitted to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central via the NIH Manuscript Submission system and made available within 12 months of publication.

Instructions for how to comply are complete description available here.