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Call for IBACS Graduate Student Fellowship Applications

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The Connecticut Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences (CT IBACS) is inviting applications to its Graduate Fellowship Program.

These summer fellowships are intended for graduate students working on topics with relevance (broadly construed) to the Brain and Cognitive Sciences. IBACS Graduate Fellows attend a short grant-writing workshop and will be expected to submit an application to the NSF GRFP, NRSA (pre- or post-doctoral fellowship), or equivalent, in the Fall.

Deadline for receipt of applications is Friday, December 3rd, 2021.

Graduate students who are not US citizens are eligible to apply and are expected to work with their advisor to develop an external research proposal if they are not eligible for graduate fellowships. Students who were fellows in summer 2020 may apply if they submitted the external grant proposal they developed last year and it was not funded, with the expectation that they will revise their previous grant or develop a new one.

Please refer to the full details here.

 

Reminder: IBACS UG Awards

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A reminder that the IBACS academic year undergraduate awards are on a rolling deadline until 2/21/22. Once funds are exhausted, the application will close. Please share with the undergrads in your labs and reach out to me if you have any questions. Further details can be found on our UG Award page. Thank you!
Best,
Crystal Mills
Institute Coordinator

9/1: IBACS Large Seed Grant Application Now Open!

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The Connecticut Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences (CT IBACS) is pleased to announce a new call for applications to its seed grant fund. 

 

The seed fund is intended to fund activities in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences (broadly construed) that are likely to lead to applications for external funding, or which otherwise contribute to the mission of the Institute. Note that funding is primarily intended to cover direct research costs such as supplies, participant fees, or per diems, as well as student support. The review criteria promote innovative, novel, and collaborative projects in the field of brain and cognitive sciences that require expertise across laboratories and traditional disciplinary boundaries. Postdocs can also apply, with a faculty mentor as co-PI. We have further expanded this year’s seed grant solicitation to include COVID recovery. This addition in scope is intended to provide funds to recover or restart relevant projects that were interrupted due to COVID-19. Full details on the seed grant program, including applications (letter of intent and full seed app), allowable costs, please check our website.

Applications for small grants (less than $10,000) can be submitted at any time; applications in excess of $10,000 (but no more than $25,000) should be submitted by October 1st.  

Please submit letters of intent as soon as possible, but at least 2 weeks prior to the seed grant application deadline (by 9/17/21), to allow time for review and feedback. 

The Institute also invites applications for affiliate memberships. 

Any questions should be directed to the Institute Coordinator, Crystal Mills at crystal.mills@uconn.edu or (860) 486-4937.

9/1: IBACS Undergrad Award Application Now Open!

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

The application period for the Fall 2021/Spring 2022 research grant program opens today, September 1st, 2021, and the deadline for applications will be 11:59 pm on Monday, February 21st, 2022. Note that the academic year applications will now be reviewed on a rolling basis and awards will be made until funds are exhausted, or up until the application deadline. In other words, apply early! 

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, minor equipment, 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 February 21st, 2022, and the deadline for applications will be 11:59 pm on March 14th, 2022. 

 

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 2021/Spring 2022 Application: https://quest.uconn.edu/prog/ibacs_undergraduate_research_grant_-_fall_2021spring_2022

       

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

      CogSci Colloquium: Joseph Henrich & Barbara Rogoff on 2/26

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      WEIRD problems and potential solutions 

       

      Since its inception, psychology’s Western-centric bias has been an impediment to a deeper understanding of human cognition. Our speakers argue that it is time for a radical transformation of social scientific research, and our understanding of human nature as a whole. 

       

      The Cognitive Science Colloquium Series is proud to jointly present Joseph Henrich and Barbara Rogoff 

       

      Friday, February 26th, from 2pm – 4:30pm, virtually via Zoom  

       

      https://zoom.us/j/4361587368?pwd=NGova2g2RGlKUC9iRXRLQkxoOW1Mdz09 

      Meeting ID: 436 158 7368 

      Passcode: CogSci 

      2.00 pm 

      W.E.I.R.D. Minds 

      Joseph Henrich, Professor and Chair of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard 

       

      Over the last few decades, a growing body of research has revealed not only substantial global variation along several important psychological dimensions, but also that people from societies that are Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) are particularly unusual, often anchoring the ends of global psychological distributions. To explain these patterns, I’ll first show how the most fundamental of human institutions—those governing marriage and the family—influence our motivations, perceptions, intuitions and emotions. Then, to explain the peculiar trajectory of European societies over the last two millennia, I lay out how one particular branch of Christianity systematically dismantled the intensive kin-based institutions in much of Latin Christendom, thereby altering people’s psychology and opening the door to the proliferation of new institutional forms, including voluntary associations (charter towns, universities and guilds), impersonal markets, individualistic religions and representative governments. In light of these findings, I close by arguing that the anthropological, psychological and economic sciences should transform into a unified evolutionary approach that considers not only how human nature influences our behavior and societies but also how the resulting institutions, technologies and languages subsequently shape our minds.  

       

      3.15 pm 

      What is learning? Cultural perspectives 

      Barbara Rogoff, UCSC Foundation Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California in Santa Cruz 

       

      Many people who have spent decades in Western schools take for granted a particular way of thinking of learning — as either receiving transmitted bits of information or acquiring it from an external world. In this presentation, I will argue for a paradigm shift, to seeing learning as a process of growth, as people transform their ways of participating in ongoing endeavors to become more competent and helpful contributors to the collective good of all, across time. My perspective is inspired and informed by research observations of a prevalent way of learning in many Indigenous-heritage communities of the Americas — Learning by Observing and Pitching In to family and community endeavors (LOPI). I will discuss some implications of these ways of conceiving of learning, based in studies of how Indigenous American communities often organize children’s learning, with associated distinctions in children’s helpfulness, ways of collaborating, and ways of learning. 

      Both speakers will join us in a GatherTown social following the event. Spots are limited to 10 graduate students and 10 faculty on a first come, first serve basis. Please email Dimitris Xygalatas, xygalatas@uconn.edu, if you are interested. 

      If you’d like to meet individually with Dr. Henrich during the day on 2/26, please email Dimitris Xygalatas, xygalatas@uconn.edu. If you’d like to meet with Dr. Rogoff, please email Letty Naigles, letitia.naigles@uconn.edu. 

      Responses for both GatherTown and one-on-ones are needed by Friday, 2/19. 

      Educational Playcare Fellowship Reminder

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      A reminder that we are reviewing applications for the EducationalPlaycareFellowship on a rolling basis. This fellowship provides up to 20 weeks of free, full-time daycare to IBACS-affiliated graduate students, to be used within the first year of their child’s life. The fellowship is intended to support students who become new parents during their graduate studies and to facilitate their return to their studies/research. Two fellowships are available each year. The fellowship is made available through a generous gift from Educational Playcare.
       
      This provides an important opportunity to help with childcare arrangements for not only those still working on campus but also those working from home during these difficult times. 
       
      Further details are available on the IBACS website. An article about the Fellowship appears in UConn Today. 

      Call for IBACS Graduate Fellowship Applications

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      The Connecticut Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences (CT IBACS) is inviting applications to its Graduate Fellowship Program.


      These summer fellowships are intended for graduate students working on topics with relevance (broadly construed) to the Brain and Cognitive Sciences. IBACS Graduate Fellows attend a short grant-writing workshop and will be expected to submit an application to the NSF GRFP, NRSA (pre- or post-doctoral fellowship), or equivalent, in the Fall.

      Deadline for receipt of applications is Friday, December 11, 2020.

      Graduate students who are not US citizens are eligible to apply and are expected to work with their advisor to develop an external research proposal if they are not eligible for graduate fellowships. Students who were fellows in 2020 may apply if they submitted the external grant proposal they developed last year and it was not funded, with the expectation that they will revise their previous grant or develop a new one.

      Please refer to the full details here. 

      IBACS Meet & Speak on 10/10

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      The CT Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences (IBACS) invites you to our annual “Meet and Speak” event on Saturday, October 10th. During this event, we hope to showcase more of the interdisciplinary work that our affiliates do, so in addition to having our recent seed recipients to speak, we have asked some specific faculty affiliates from various disciplines to speak as well. These faculty will give up to 10-minute presentations describing, in accessible language, the research they have carried out, or propose carrying out in relation to the Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Graduate students affiliated with the Institute will be providing short “datablitz” style presentations about their involvement in IBACS seed-funded or fellowship-supported research. Following the graduate student blitz, there will be a panel discussion to commemorate our 5-year anniversary. The panel will discuss questions such as the following: What does brain science/cognitive science mean to you? What are the challenges to progress that particularly excite you? What are the opportunities for progress? Where is brain science/cognitive science heading, or where should it head?   Following the panel discussion, we shall have a keynote by Dr. John Gabrieli, MIT. According to Google Scholar, he is in the top 10 most cited individuals in Cognitive Neuroscience. His talk is entitled “Environmental Influences on Human Brain Development”. More information about Dr. Gabrieli is below.

      This event will be held virtually on Zoom. Please note that the majority of the talks will be pre-recorded and played during the event, although attendees can ask questions to the speakers live. The panel discussion and Keynote Speaker talk will both be live. The program is attached and also available on our website.  Zoom details will come soon – please visit this webpage for the most up-to-date information.

      This event will provide an opportunity to learn more about the diverse research that IBACS affiliates are engaged in, and will provide a forum for cross-disciplinary networking. We hope you can join us on October 10th to celebrate our 5-year anniversary!

       If you are interested in attending all or part of this event, please pre-register by Friday, October 2nd. Note that pre-registration is just to give us an idea of the number to expect over Zoom.

       

       

      About John Gabrieli:

      Bio: John Gabrieli is the director of the Athinoula A. Martinos Imaging Center at the McGovern Institute. He is an investigator at the McGovern Institute, with faculty appointments in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the Institute for Medical Engineering & Science, where he holds the Grover Hermann Professorship. He also has appointments in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and is the director of the MIT Integrated Learning Initiative. Prior to joining MIT in 2005, he spent 14 years at Stanford University in the Department of Psychology and Neurosciences Program. He received a PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and a BA in English from Yale University.
       

      Talk title: Environmental Influences on Human Brain Development 

      Abstract: Neuroimaging provides new views on how environmental factors influence human brain development.  I will review findings about associations (1) among family socioeconomic status (SES), brain anatomy, and academic performance; (2) between early language experience and brain function and structure; and (3) between stress and brain function and how those can be altered by mindfulness training.

      Announcing IBACS Undergraduate Awards

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

      The application period for the Fall 2020/Spring 2021 research grant program opens today, Tuesday, September 1st, 2020, and the deadline for applications will be 11:59 pm on Monday, February 22nd, 2021. Note that the academic year applications will now be reviewed on a rolling basis and awards will be made until funds are exhausted, or up until the application deadline. In other words, apply early! 

      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. It is expected that there will be ten awards of up to $1,000 during the Fall 2020/Spring 2021 academic year. The funding is meant to defray the research-related costs such as materials & supplies, minor equipment, 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 Monday, February 22nd, 2021, and the deadline for applications will be 11:59 pm on Friday, March 12th, 2021. 

      All recipients are encouraged to present their work at the Frontiers in Undergraduate Research Poster Exhibition.

       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 2020/Spring 2021 Application: https://quest.uconn.edu/prog/ibacs_undergraduate_research_grant_-_fall_2020spring_2021/

           Please visit our website for more information. 

          Call for IBACS Seed Grant Applications

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          The Connecticut Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences (CT IBACS) is pleased to announce a new call for applications to its seed grant fund. Full details (and forms for the required letter of intent) can be found on the Institute website. 

           The seed fund is intended to fund activities in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences (broadly construed) that are likely to lead to applications for external funding, or which otherwise contribute to the mission of the Institute. Successful applications will typically involve collaborations that require expertise across laboratories and traditional disciplinary boundaries. The Institute does not usually fund research that might normally be considered to fall within the scope of a single lab or discipline. 

          Applications for small grants (<$10,000) can be submitted at any time; applications in excess of $10,000 should be submitted by October 1st.  

          Please submit letters of intent as soon as possible, but at least 2 weeks prior to the seed grant application deadline (by 9/17/20), to allow time for review and feedback. 

          The Institute also invites applications for affiliate memberships.