Two new investigators will be hired into tenure track positions (with a minimum funding for 4 years beyond the grant). The searches for these positions were pre-empted by a hiring freeze. Additional economic impact comes from two additional full-time technicians to be hired and laboratory startup spending. The two hires are interdisciplinary. One investigator will be jointly appointed in Psychology and Linguistics, and the other will be jointly appointed in Communication Disorders and Psychology. These hires will catalyze the formation of a Cognitive Science Language Core research center. The foundations for this Core has been built over the last decade through coordination of the Cognitive Science Program and the three appointing departments. We will leverage these hires to catalyze our potential for multidisciplinary and translational research in core NIDCD areas. The new investigators we would hire are stellar in their own right, but also have deep interest in bridging basic and translational research, and bring research programs and skill sets that are ideal for building bridges among our three departments. These hires will do more than simply fill gaps;we have crafted a plan that would simultaneously nurture the development of the new investigators while creating permanent structures, mechanisms, and events that will facilitate interdisciplinary and translational language research at UConn.
2 faculty investigators will be hired and jointly appointed in 2 departments (Psychology and Linguistics or Communication Disorders and Psychology). Planned activities will facilitate and accelerate ongoing efforts at bridging basic and applied research in typical and atypical language structure, processing and development. The resulting translational research has great potential for improving understanding and intervention.
