In this Partnership for International Research and Education award, Georgetown University and Howard University will develop a multi-lateral international neuroscience collaboration involving several German and French institutions. The U.S. researchers and students involved will work with teams at the Technical University of Munich led by Arthur Konnerth, at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich led by Benedikt Grothe, at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tubingen led by Nikos Logothetis, at the Eberhard-Karls-University in Tubingen led by Peter Thier, at the Laboratory for Molecular and Cellular Neurobiology in Gif-sur-Yvette led by Gabriella Ugolini, and at the Brain and Cognition Research Center in Toulouse led by Simon Thorpe. They will form a focused, integrated, and complementary collaboration to lead neuroscience research and education on the international stage. Research topics include the neuronal functions of the cerebral cortex associated with auditory object processing, motion processing and contextual motor behavior, and the interaction of stimulus processing and category processing to produce object recognition.
This award will help to train the next generation of globally engaged scientists and engineers, as approximately twenty undergraduate students, fourteen graduate students, and five postdoctoral researchers will be funded to conduct research abroad with the German and French partners over the five-year course of the award. In addition, this award will allow Georgetown and Howard Universities to pursue their plans of developing a joint doctoral program with the Technical University of Munich and will leverage funds already received by the Technical University of Munich from the German Research Foundation, which encourage U.S. / German collaboration by allowing German doctoral students to conduct research at Georgetown via the International Research Training Group program. This award will enhance an already-existing neuroscience collaboration between Howard University and Georgetown University and will broaden participation by taking advantage of Howard University's ability to recruit under-represented minority students. The project overall is designed to broaden students' perspectives through an active international collaboration and participation in jointly organized international summer academies. The award includes funding for an outside evaluator to determine how well the project reaches its goals.
This award receives support from NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering and Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences.
