Our Interdisciplinary Predoctoral Neuroscience Training Program strives to provide individualized, high quality training to predoctoral students interested in pursuing scientific research careers in the biological and biomedical sciences. This training grant will support students in their first two years of graduate studies, before they star their dissertation research. We request support for 8 students per year. Graduate students in our program receive broad, multi-disciplinary training that spans many levels of inquiry, from genes through cognition, and emphasizes concepts, methodologies, quantitative skills, and sophisticated analysis of the primary literature. Our core curriculum consists of team-taught graduate courses, seminars, and workshops that provide a strong scientific foundation in neuroscience and develop skills that are essential for successful, independent research careers in neuroscience, such as effective science writing and oral presentation, knowledge of scientific review processes, and training in ethics. We have introduced new initiatives to expose students to translational and clinical neuroscience with our Bench to Bedside seminar series. On average, students in our program finish their PhD in 5.35 years, and the majority of our alumni continue their careers in science-related fields including academic or industry science positions. We foster an environment unconstrained by traditional discipline boundaries and where graduate students are encouraged to work at the interfaces of these disciplines. The training program includes 34 core participating faculty and ~50 predoctoral trainees. The faculty trainers are drawn from seven different Brown University departments: Neuroscience; Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences; Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry; Engineering; Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology and Biotechnology; Biostatistics; and Neurosurgery. They are a distinguished and energetic group of brain scientists that collectively cover the spectrum of modern neuroscience research: they work with a wide variety of model organisms, from worms to humans, and use an array of modern neuroscience techniques, including functional MRI, applications of robotics and neuroprosthetics, optogenetics, advanced in vivo and in vitro electrophysiological recordings, mouse transgenics, behavioral studies, molecular manipulations of neuronal genes, functional proteomics, and human genome-wide association studies. We encourage and facilitate collaborations between labs as well as research in computational and translational neuroscience that typically reside at the interface of disciplines. Key features of the Neuroscience Graduate Program at Brown include: Excellence in research along with excellence in education and mentorship; a history of interdisciplinary and translational research; rigorous training in experimental design and quantitative methods, and an environment of highly productive labs where graduate students are equal partners in the research process.
This is a broadly based predoctoral training program in Neuroscience. We provide individualized, high quality training to predoctoral students interested in pursuing scientific research careers in the biological and biomedical sciences. This training grant would support students in their first two years of graduate studies, before they start their dissertation research. We request 8 predoctoral training slots for students in their first two year of our program.
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