This award funds the U.S. PI, Jose L. Bermudez, Professor of Philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis and 8 U.S. researchers (including 2 post-docs or graduate students), to convene a joint interdisciplinary workshop on theoretical interfaces in language and memory. The workshop will be held in Beijing, July 16-21, 2007. The US-China Joint Workshop on Memory and Language: Interdisciplinary Perspectives" will build an integrated research and teaching agenda around a key challenge of contemporary cognitive science: integrating theoretical approaches to understanding how languages (first and second) are acquired through the methods of cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and computational modeling. The counterpart hosts are Professor CAI, Shushan, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, and Professor YANG, Xiaolu, Foreign Languages Department, both at Tsinghua University, in Beijing, China.
The proposed workshop is based on the complementary strengths of the two lead institutions which have newly established programs: WUSTL's Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology (PNP) program and Tsinghua's Center for Psychology and Cognitive Science. The credentials and experience of principal researchers at both of these interdisciplinary units provide a strong intellectual base for a fruitful discussion. The workshop venue and design will attract academics from other U.S. and Chinese institutions interested in the topic. The workshop will include several sessions on curriculum design in psychology and cognitive science, and will enhance the international institutional infrastructure of WUSTL and Tsinghua to successfully collaborate. The U.S. participants represent several U.S. universities, and include four women and one underrepresented minority. The PI has reserved space for 2 graduate students or post-docs to participate. The results of this workshop will make important contributions to students interested in this nascent research area.
