This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) award supports the establishment of an interdisciplinary graduate training program in Cognitive, Computational, and Systems Neuroscience at Washington University in Saint Louis. Understanding how the brain works under normal circumstances and how it fails are among the most important problems in science. The purpose of this program is to train a new generation of systems-level neuroscientists who will combine experimental and computational approaches from the fields of psychology, neurobiology, and engineering to study brain function in unique ways. Students will participate in a five-course core curriculum that provides a broad base of knowledge in each of the core disciplines, and culminates in a pair of highly integrative and interactive courses that emphasize critical thinking and analysis skills, as well as practical skills for developing interdisciplinary research projects. This program also includes workshops aimed at developing the personal and professional skills that students need to become successful independent investigators and educators, as well as outreach programs aimed at communicating the goals and promise of integrative neuroscience to the general public. This training program will be tightly coupled to a new research focus involving neuro-imaging in nonhuman primates. By building upon existing strengths at Washington University, this research and training initiative will provide critical new insights into how the non-invasive measurements of brain function that are available in humans (e.g. from functional MRI) are related to the underlying activity patterns in neuronal circuits of the brain. IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the interdisciplinary background, deep knowledge in a chosen discipline, and the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education by establishing innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kurt ThoroughmanGregory DeAngelisRandy BucknerSteven PetersenDora Angelaki
To address the challenges of recruiting, training, impacting, and retaining scientists in informal outreach and to capitalize on access to the public through a local science center, Washington University and the St. Louis Science Center (SLSC; http://www.slsc.org) collaborated to create a program that combines informal science communication and the professional development of graduate students. The program sought to produce scientists who were trained to be effective informal educators. Workshops developed and led by SLSC staff, followed by personalized coaching, covered essential science
There is a gap between the discipline of economics and the public it is supposedly about and for. This gap is reminiscent of the divide that led to movements for the public understanding of and public engagement with the natural sciences. It is a gap in knowledge, trust, and opinions, but most of all it is a gap in engagement. In this paper we ask: What do we need to think about — and what do we need to do — in order to bring economics and its public into closer dialogue? At stake is engaged, critical democracy. We turn to the fields of public understanding of science and science studies for
On the first day of the Science and Society course at the Cooperstown Graduate Program in Cooperstown, New York, I present the students with an incandescent lightbulb, with clear glass so one can easily see the filament inside. I ask the students how it works and they are able to tell me that the electricity comes in there, runs through the filament here, heats up, and produces light. Then I take out my iPhone and slide it across the table and ask, “How does this work?” Blank stares abound.
This article provides a starting position and scene-setter for an invited commentary series on science communication and public intellectualism. It begins by briefly considering what intellectualism and public intellectualism are, before discussing their relationship with science communication, especially in academia. It ends with a call to science communication academics and practitioners to either become more active in challenging the status quo, or to help support those who wish to by engendering a professional environment that encourages risk-taking and speaking-out in public about
Reflecting on the public role of academics, this issue of JCOM includes a set of commentaries exploring public intellectuals and intellectualism. The commentaries explore the role of academics in public debates, both as bringers of facts and passion. These pieces, together with past commentaries and letters to JCOM raise interesting questions about the role of academics in public debates that are, perhaps not those usually trodden in the academic literature.
Mongolia’s Darhad Valley and regions of Montana can be considered bioregions. A bioregion “encompasses landscapes, natural processes and human elements as equal parts of a whole” (BioRegions.org). Indigenous people live within both regions, and they respectively consider holistic interactions between landscapes, natural processes and humans. Both are faced with change related to developmental pursuits and globalism. Understanding and documenting language and mode of expression is an important way for community members to recognize the value of place and tradition, and how these things are
In today's society a variety of challenges need attention because they are considered to affect our well-being. Many of these challenges can be addressed with new innovations, yet they may also introduce new challenges. Communication of these new innovations is vital. This importance is also addressed by the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation. In the present commentary we draw on a dataset of 196 research projects and discuss the two research streams of Science Communication and Responsible Research and Innovation and how they are complements to each other. We conclude with
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Victor ScholtenJeroen van den HovenEefje CuppenSteven Flipse
Much of science communication is peer-to-peer communication in collaborative networks for innovation from the fuzzy front-end of innovation until the marketing back-end. Scientists and engineers at meetings tables talking about new developments. Or scientists and engineers in collaboration with industry and policy makers, discussing various scenarios for implementation of e.g. health care services. However, this focus on science communication 'within the action' of uncertain development of science and technology and its attached academic domains such as innovation studies, high-tech marketing
This study of the science communication views and practices of African researchers ― academics at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Zimbabwe ― reveals a bleak picture of the low status of public science engagement in the developing world. Researchers prioritise peer communication and pay little attention to the public, policy makers and popular media. Most scientists believe the public is largely not scientifically literate or interested in research. An unstable funding environment, a lack of communication incentives and censoring of politically sensitive findings
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Heather NdlovuMarina JoubertNelius Boshoff
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Scientists for whom English is not their first language report disadvantages with academic communication internationally. This case study explores preliminary evidence from non-Anglophone scientists in an Australian research organisation, where English is the first language. While the authors identified similarities with previous research, they found that scientists from non-Anglophone language backgrounds are limited by more than their level of linguistic proficiency in English. Academic science communication may be underpinned by perceptions of identity that are defined by the Anglocentric
The Yellowstone Altai-Sayan Project (YASP) brings together student and professional researchers with Indigenous researchers and communities in domestic and international settings. 4 MSU and 2 tribal college student participants engaged research projects with their home communities in the western U.S.—Crow, Northern Cheyenne, Fort Peck Assiniboine & Sioux, Fort Berthold Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara—and with Indigenous communities in Mongolia Research was initiated with home communities in spring 2016, and with Indigenous researchers and herder (seminomadic) communities in the Darhad Valley of
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kristin RuppelCliff MontagneLisa Lone FightBadamgarav DovchinTaylor ElderCamaleigh Old CoyoteJoaquin Small-RodriguezEsther HallTillie StewartKendra Teague