Undergraduate

IBACS is happy to announce another year of the undergraduate research grant program!

Please note that our dates have changed from past cycles. The academic year application is open and Fall 2023 applications are due at 11:59 pm September 18, 2023. Spring 2024 applications are due on February 6, 2024.

It is expected that applicants will be conducting research with IBACS faculty members, focusing on any research area associated with the IBACS mission. Faculty sponsors will need to supply a letter of recommendation. Once the applicant lists the faculty advisor of the project in the form, an email will be sent to the faculty member with directions for how to submit the letter. Applicants must fill out the online application, and also submit via the online application, a relatively short research plan (maximum of 6,000 characters, approximately 3 pages) and a budget that explains in detail how the funds will be spent. The application link is listed below. It is recommended that the student first compose the research plan and budget using a word processing program, and then upload the final versions on to the website.

This program is not meant to provide direct financial support to students. Instead, it is meant to provide support for the research. The account will be set up with the faculty sponsor after the award is given. The funding is meant to defray the research-related costs such as materials & supplies, software, animal or participant-related costs. The budget should reflect these expenditures.

Recipients cannot apply for another grant within the same academic year, however, are eligible for the summer research grant program, provided that they are still a UConn student at the time. Please note that the application period for the summer research grant program will open on December 1, 2023, and the deadline for applications will be 11:59 pm on January 30, 2024.

The IBACS undergraduate award academic year applications are reviewed based on the following criteria:

The project description is well written and clearly explains the project.
The project clearly focuses on a research area associated with the IBACS mission.
The budget is itemized, appropriate to the project described, and reports the total cost of the project (even if it exceeds the funding requested).
The advisor is familiar with the student’s project and rates the student’s work to date highly.
Where project applications are equally meritorious, the reviewers will take note of how the student’s project will contribute to the advisor’s research goals.
The student and his/her project meet the eligibility criteria.
The student has secured research compliance approval(s) if necessary for the project. No award will be issued until documentation of approval(s) is received.

IBACS Fall 2023/Spring 2024 Application: https://quest.uconn.edu/prog/ibacs_undergraduate_research_grant_-_fall_2023_spring_2024/

Please contact our Institute Coordinator, Crystal Mills at crystal.mills@uconn.edu or (860) 486-4937 if you have any questions or visit our information page.

Heather_Read_story_ReadandGarbuz — Undergraduate April Garbuz has learned from mentor Heather Read that it takes all kinds of scientists and engineers working together to understand how our brain functions. (Christine Buckley/UConn Photo)

Heather Read, an associate professor of psychological sciences and biomedical engineering at UConn, and undergraduate April Garbuz are working on a project concerned with how the brain’s auditory circuits react to different vocal tones, shapes, pitches, and rhythms – what people use to distinguish between laughing and crying. Successfully mapping out these areas on the brain may allow for therapies or computerized devices to help with differentiation in those who can’t do it for themselves.

Read works with co-PI Monty Escabi, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, and notes that “It takes all kinds of scientists to do these kinds of studies, it makes for a really cool environment not just for research, but for our students to learn.”

Psychology department head Jim Green agrees, saying that this successful collaboration of faculty from different programs shows how building multidisciplinary studies leads to stronger research programs.

“Complex problems often cannot be solved by a single investigator, and brain science is a truly multidisciplinary effort,” Green says. “UConn’s current brain studies have faculty from at least seven different departments, in four colleges, working together. It’s incredibly exciting.”

The Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences

IBACS Undergraduate Award Application is Open!

The Difference Between Laughing and Crying: A Multidisciplinary Effort

“Complex problems often cannot be solved by a single investigator, and brain science is a truly multidisciplinary effort,” Green says. “UConn’s current brain studies have faculty from at least seven different departments, in four colleges, working together. It’s incredibly exciting.”