IU cognitive scientists receive $3.1 million

Cognitive scientists at Indiana University Bloomington received a five-year, $3.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to create and employ innovative methods for training future scientists.

According to the NSF, the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program is intended to "catalyze a cultural change in graduate education" with innovative new models for graduate education and training that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries. IGERT also is "intended to facilitate diversity in student participation and preparation, and to contribute to a world-class, broadly inclusive, and globally engaged science and engineering workforce."

"This highly-competitive award is a strong recognition of the quality of the cognitive science program at IU Bloomington," said Randall Beer, principal investigator. Beer is professor of cognitive science and professor in the School of Informatics and Computing. "Building on our existing strengths in the psychological and brain sciences and complex systems, as well as our new activities in robotics, this award will allow us to offer a unique training program on situated, embodied and dynamical approaches to cognition."

IU Bloomington's program, one of 18 funded this year out of more than 400 initial proposals, will focus on the role that the interaction of an agent's body and environment with its brain plays in the production of behavior and cognition. The dominant approach in science consists of breaking things down into smaller and smaller components. The core motivation for the "dynamics of brain-body-environment interaction in behavior and cognition" IU training initiative is to not only decompose systems into their parts, but to compose these parts back together again to show how they interact to form a functioning and adaptive whole. The graduate students will receive training in a variety of methods, including computational simulations, mathematical analysis, experimental methods, robotics and neuroscience. The systems that they study will span many levels, from individual neurons, to neural circuits, to developing infants, to groups of people forming organizations.

Co-investigators include Robert Goldstone, director of the Cognitive Science Program; Linda Smith, Chancellor's Professor and chair of the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences; and Olaf Sporns, professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. The 20 faculty members participating in the program have appointments in the Cognitive Science Program, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, and Department of History and Philosophy of Science, in the College of Arts and Sciences; and the Department of Computer Science in the School of Informatics and Computing.

The new program will include courses and professional development activities, an extended colloquium series, domestic and international summer research internships, a summer program for undergraduate students from underrepresented groups, and an annual research showcase.

The first class of fellows will begin in the spring. They are Jennifer Trueblood, Paul Williams and Carlos Zednik, doctoral students in the cognitive science program; Skyler Place and Thomas Wisdom, doctoral students in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences who are working on joint degrees in cognitive science; and Richard Veale, doctoral student in computer science who is working on a joint degree in cognitive science.

Beer can be reached at rdbeer@indiana.edu. For more information about the program, visit http://mypage.iu.edu/~rdbeer/IGERTOverview.pdf.

Peter Finn competes in swimming championships

Professor Peter Finn recently competed in the U.S. Masters Swimming Long Course Nationals competition in Indianapolis.

Finn placed fourth nationally in the 50 and 100 meter breaststroke. His relay team won gold medals in the 200 and 400 medley relay events. The team also broke the national record in the 400 medley relay. Finn's team members were Joel Stager, professor of kinesiology, Gary Hall Sr., IU alumnus and three-time Olympian, and Ed Silva, IU alumnus and graduate of Bloomington High School South.

The event is supported by U.S. Masters Swimming, a group founded in 1970 to promote continued competition for former swimmers.

College "Themester" honors Charles Darwin

This fall, the College of Arts & Sciences will mark the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of his publication On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection with its first Themester, titled "Evolution, Diversity and Change."

For more information, visit themester.indiana.edu.

Undergraduate scholar Q&A

The Indiana University Scholarships Web site recently featured neuroscience major Tarlise Townsend and Psychology major Laura Englehardt.

Townsend, a Cox scholar, s also majoring in Germanic studies and minoring in mathematics and biology. She hopes to eventually attend graduate school in neuroscience.

Englehardt is pursuing another major in Spanish and a minor in human development and family studies. She plans to attend graduate school for psychology.

Phil Summers honored by freshman class

Professor Phil Summers was selected as the favorite professor of the 2009 freshman class of the honoraries Alpha Lambda Delta and Phi Eta Sigma, Indiana University Bloomington chapters.

The two academic honor societies for first-year students were founded in the early twentieth century. Summers received the most nominations from students who were initiated in Spring 2009.

Research at IU Bloomington, IU School of Medicine given $3 million boost

In 1979, Chancellor's Professor David Pisoni brought the first two postdoctoral researchers to Indiana University's campus when he was awarded a five-year training grant by the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders. Today, the same grant supports six postdoctoral researchers, six doctoral students and six medical students in Bloomington and Indianapolis.

The grant, now funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), has received additional funding to continue through 2014--making it the longest existing training grant in NIDCD history. During the next six years, the NIDCD will provide more than $3 million for training in research concerning the use of sensory aids, such as cochlear implants and hearing aids.

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