NSF program director to provide discussion sessions On Feb. 1 and 2, NSF program director Thomas J. Baerwald will provide a series of presentations about funding opportunities and procedures at NSF. Baerwald will facilitate four NSF funding discussion sessions over the two-day period. The Office of the Vice President for Research and the Department of Geography are coordinating Baerwald’s visit to UND. All interested faculty, staff, and students are welcome to attend. Refreshments will be provided at all sessions. NSF grantsmanship discussions: Monday, Feb 1: 1 to 2:30 p.m. – National Science Foundation Funding Opportunities and Strategies, River Valley Room, Memorial Union 3 to 4:30 p.m. – Do’s and Don’ts for First-Time Grant Proposers, River Valley Room, Memorial Union Tuesday, Feb. 2 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. – Proposal Rejection: Strategies for Resubmission, Lecture Bowl, Memorial Union 11 a.m. to noon – NSF Group Projects, Lecture Bowl, Memorial Union 2 to 3 p.m. – Forum for Contemporary Geographic Issues: Perspectives on Geography’s Present and Future, O’Kelly Hall, Room 19 Thomas J. Baerwald serves as Senior Science Advisor in the Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Virginia. In that capacity, he assumes a number of major responsibilities. He is one of three program directors for the Geography and Spatial Sciences (GSS) Program. From 2001 to 2007, he was a Co-Coordinator of the NSF Biocomplexity in the Environment special competition on the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH), and since 2008, he has been a program officer for a standing, multidirectorate CNH Program. He has served as a member of the NSF Working Group on Environmental Research and Education since 2001, and from 2003 to 2008, he was one of the members of the management team for NSF's Human and Social Dynamics interdisciplinary competitions. He also is a coordinator for environmental social and behavioral science activities, assisting in the conduct of interdisciplinary efforts that engage social and behavioral scientists in the studies of interactions among human and natural systems. Baerwald has worked at NSF since 1988. Baerwald earned a B.A. in geography and history from Valparaiso University and both M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in geography at the University of Minnesota. Baerwald specializes in studies of contemporary metropolitan development processes and urban transportation. For more information, please contact Rosemary Thue, assistant to the Vice President for Research (777-4915) or Brad Rundquist, chair of the Department of Geography (777-4589).