For graduate fellows interested in postdoctoral research after their PhD's and with aspirations for academic careers, there will be an "international academic research internship" program, typically offered for 10 weeks during the summer at the culmination of three academic years of IGERT support. Dr. Adrian Mann will serve as the internship coordinator. The intent of the internship is three-fold: (i) to enhance the graduate education of IGERT fellows by exposure to experimental facilities complementary to those at Rutgers, thereby enabling students to gain valuable experience and skills; (ii) allow the students to "broaden out" their research perspectives and create a "boundary crossing" attitude, and (iii) nucleate a global connection that could ultimately lead toward an international post-doctoral or collaborative research in a field of interest. This program is described in full details on under the FOREIGN INTERNSHIPS SITES section. Over 15 different sites have been identified for the internship program including Department of Materials, Imperial College, London; Tissue Engineering Center, Imperial College, London; Biomaterials Program, Cambridge University; Laboratory for Surface Science & Technology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich; and Interdisciplinary Research Center in Biomedical Materials, University of London. The summer international internship will be integrated into the IGERT thesis program in multiple ways: first, the program will provide 3-6 research credits toward the 24 research credit requirement for the PhD; second, the selection of the summer internship site will be made early in the student's PhD. study to enable the integration of research into the PhD. Thesis; finally, the host faculty at the international site will be included as a member of the student's PhD thesis committee.