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Call for proposals: COGS student-faculty research collaboration

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The Cognitive Science Program is pleased to announce a call for proposals to promote collaboration between Cognitive Science undergraduate students and faculty on student-led projects. These grants are intended to support new ideas, pilot studies, and exploratory projects that bring together our community of scholars across disciplines. Priority will be given to projects that provide clear opportunities for student mentorship and training.
Funding details:
  • Awards of up to $2,000 each.
  • Funds may be used for research expenses such as participant recruitment, software, materials, travel for data collection, or other justifiable research-related costs.
  • Funds must be spent within 12 months of the award date.
Eligibility:
  • Applications must involve at least one UConn COGS student (graduate or undergraduate) and one UConn faculty member.
  • Proposals should clearly demonstrate how the project will foster collaboration and contribute to the mission of the Cognitive Science Program.
  • Proposals emphasizing student training will be prioritized.
Application details:
  • Project title and team members.
  • Research proposal (no more than 2 pages, single-spaced), and include:
    • A project description. Define research goals, hypotheses, and methods precisely.
    • A brief description of the individual participant roles in the project design and execution.
    • Plan for collaboration between student(s) and faculty.
    • Anticipated outcomes (e.g., pilot data, conference presentation, publication, future grant submission, presentation at IBACS end of year event) including undergraduate-specific departmental poster nights.
    • Project timeline (not included in page maximum).
    • Budget and justification (not included in page maximum).
    • References (not included in page maximum).
  • CVs for all applicants
Conditions:
  • If awarded, necessary safety and protocol materials (e.g. IRB, IBC, SCRO, Safety Training, etc.) must be provided before funds can be disbursed.
  • The Cognitive Science students should be active students for the duration of the project.
Deadline:
December 1, 2025
Funding decisions will be made by December 15, 2025
Visit the award webpage to apply!
If you have any questions about this award, please email cogsci@uconn.edu.

28th Annual Neuroscience at Storrs symposium on Nov 6th, 2025

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Dear Members of the UConn Neuro Community,

 

On behalf of the Neuroscience Steering Committee, you are cordially invited to the 28th ANNUAL NEUROSCIENCE AT STORRS SYMPOSIUM on Thursday, November 6th, 2025, from 3:30pm – 8:30pm in The Dodd Center / Bousfield Building on the Storrs campus.

 

This annual event is sponsored by IBACS and brings together the brain science community at UConn/UConn HEALTH from across diverse departments, schools, and colleges. The event is supported by the BME department (this year’s host), and the departments of PNB, Psychological Sciences, and Pharmaceutical Sciences. The 28th Annual NEUROSCIENCE AT STORRS is packed with an inspiring keynote lecture, exciting short-format research talks, and poster presentations. All events are open to interested undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, staff, and faculty from across UConn departments and schools.

 

This year’s Keynote Speaker is Dr. Nima Mesgarani, PhD, Associate Professor at the Zuckerman Mind, Brain, and Behavior Institute at Columbia University. Dr. Mesgarani is an internationally recognized scholar and leader in neural engineering and auditory neuroscience. He is a pioneer in the study of neural circuits underlying speech processing and made several key contributions to the development of AI models for automatic speech processing and brain computer interfaces for speech recognition. For information, please visit: https://naplab.ee.columbia.edu/

 

This is a GENERAL CALL for:

 

•                     POSTERS: Poster presentations from trainees (graduate students and postdocs) from UConn, UConn HEALTH or other local institutions (DEADLINE for submission: Tuesday, Nov. 4th)

•                     DATA BLITZ TALKS: Each talk is 3 mins and 3-4 PPT slides, 2 mins for questions, and limited to trainees (graduate students or postdocs) from UConn or UConn HEALTH (DEADLINE for submission: Monday, Nov. 3rd)

•                     REGISTRATION: Everyone is welcome, please register as soon as possible!

 

Please submit your applications for giving a poster presentation or Data blitz talk, as well as registration, at the bottom of the website: https://neuroscience.uconn.edu/28th-annual-neuroscience-at-storrs-2/

 

Neuroscience at Storrs has always been a fun and interactive showcase for our vibrant brain science community here at UConn, please spread the word and participate!

 

For general questions, please contact Sabato Santaniello (sabato.santaniello@uconn.edu) in the Biomedical Engineering Department.

 

Thanks!

 

The Neuroscience Steering Committee:

 

Alexander Jackson (PNB)

John Salamone and Heather Read (Psych)

Gregory Sartor (Pharm)

Sabato Santaniello (BME)

COGS Director Dimitris Xygalatas Featured in UConn Publications!

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Our very own COGS Program Director, Dimitris Xygalatas, has been featured not once, but twice recently in major UConn publications!
Check out these fascinating pieces that spotlight his latest research on the powerful social bonds formed through rituals—especially in the world of sports fandom:
“It’s Not the Game, It’s the Group: Sports Fans Connect the Most Over Rituals”
The study, by a UConn team of scientists, shows that levels of emotional connection and euphoria are on average higher during intense pre-game rituals than they are during the game itself.
“All Together Now”
That connection you feel with fellow fans at the game? It’s even more powerful than you think.

COGS & ECOM Talk on 4/19: Dr. Psyche Loui

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11/10 COGS & SLHS Colloquium: Dr. Samuel Mathias

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The Cognitive Science Program and the Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences Department are co-hosting a talk on 11/10!   

Speaker: Dr. Samuel Mathias, Professor of Psychology from the Department of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School

Time & Location: 4PM, Friday November 10, 2023, in McHugh Hall Room 206

Talk Title: “Genetic and environmental influences on hearing, cocktail-party listening, and cognition”

Abstract: Everyday hearing requires solving the cocktail-party problem, or segregating and attending to the relevant parts of complex auditory scenes. There are huge individual differences in cocktail-party listening abilities. People with clinical hearing loss generally struggle with cocktail-party listening due to impaired basic auditory sensitivity; however, others experience similar difficulties despite having “normal” sensitivity. Conventional wisdom says that such individual differences are due to a combination of genetic and environmental factors, although the specific factors and their relative weights are poorly understood. This talk will describe preliminary work and future plans to identify specific genetic and environmental factors influencing hearing abilities, including basic auditory sensitivity and cocktail-party listening. We will also discuss how these abilities relate to cognition, with a view towards leveraging these relationships to better understand the distinct and shared etiologies of presbycusis, cognitive decline, and dementia.

Meetings: If you are interested in meeting with Dr. Mathias during the day before his talk or in dinner on Friday evening, please email Crystal: crystal.mills@uconn.edu. Thank you!

Two COGS Undergraduate Course Offerings in Fall 2023

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We are pleased to announce TWO undergraduate course offerings from The Cognitive Science Program in Fall 2023. Seats are filling up quickly so sign up soon!  

Coding for Cognitive Science 

Course Name: COGS 2500Q: Coding for Cognitive Science  

Days and times: Tuesdays & Thursdays from 9:30am – 10:45am   

Classroom: Oak 308  

Instructor: Dr. Stefan Kaufmann  

Instruction mode: Hybrid Limited  

Prerequisites: None  

Course overview: This course is an introduction to computer programming for students with little or no prior programming experience. Its goal is to familiarize students with core concepts and essential skills, with special emphasis on typical tasks and applications in the Cognitive Sciences. We use the Python programming language because it is both accessible to beginners and widely used in real-world scientific programming. However, the concepts and skills we cover are helpful in mastering other programming languages as well.  

 

Language & Racism  

Course Name: COGS 2345/AFRA 2345: Language and Racism  

Days and times: Tuesdays & Thursdays from 12:30pm – 1:45pm   

Classroom: Arjona 105  

Instructors: Drs. Letitia Naigles & Bede Agocha  

Instruction Mode: In-Person  

Prerequisites: Open to sophomores or higher. Recommended preparation: One course in AFRA or COGS.  

Description: This course examines the relationships between language use, both historically and across the lifespan, and the social construction of race, racism, and racial identity, with particular emphasis on racial politics in the United States.  

Course overview: LANGUAGE plays an immense, though often underrated role in nearly every domain of students’ lives, including where they live, who they love, what they learn, and whether and how they get and keep a job. Relatedly, then, language can also prevent all of the above. Language is a vehicle of racism because the language used by those in the majority or in power is artfully constructed to categorize people according to race and to place groups in deeply hierarchical relationships to one another.  

Our course on Language and Racism deploys tools of the cognitive and psychological sciences to both illuminate and illustrate potential interventions for language racism.  

  • We examine the linguistics and sociolinguistics of the language(s) used by Black communities in the U.S., including their origins, creolization, complex linguistic structure, and issues of stigma versus pride.  
  • We examine the language of racism, including the types of discourse that construct Whiteness as dominant over Color, the processes of language standardization, and the ideologies of language and their interaction with group identity at both the local and national community levels.  
  • We consider antiracism interventions that are language-based.  
  • The course is project-based, with students learning to understand how language is used in their various social contexts as well as in contexts they can access via stored content. Students will learn to analyze their own and others’, famous and commonplace, racist and antiracist linguistic output/texts, using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) computational tool, which analyzes texts as manifesting properties such as anger, authority, in-group, out-group, and fairness.  

Hot off the Press: IBACS 2022/2023 Brain Digest

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The Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences is excited to share the recently finalized IBACS 22/23 Brain Digest that features the Cognitive Science Program. Thank you to all of the faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students who have contributed- especially our graduate student editors, Cynthia Boo and Lee Drown! We hope you will enjoy reading it as much as we’ve enjoyed creating it. Please email the IBACS Coordinator, Crystal Mills, at crystal.mills@uconn.edu if you’d like physical copies mailed to you.

IBACS-Brain-Digest_FY2023

 

IBACS Summer 2023 Call for Seed Grant Applications

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IBACS Summer 2023 Undergraduate Research Grant Program 

The application period for the summer research grant program opens TODAY, Monday February 20th, and the deadline for applications will be 11:59 pm on March 13th, 2023. It is expected that applicants will be conducting research with IBACS faculty members, focusing on any research area associated with the IBACS mission.  Faculty sponsors will need to supply a letter of recommendation. Once the applicant lists the faculty advisor of the project in the form, an email will be sent to the faculty member with directions for how to submit the letter. Applicants must fill out the online application, submit a relatively short research plan and a budget that explains in detail how the funds will be spent.

The budget should be constructed in the following manner:  The total award will be for up to $5,000. $3,500 should go to providing the student with a summer stipend, and it is expected that the student will spend at least 10 weeks of the summer working on this project at UConn.  Up to $1,500 can be allocated for any supplies or materials that contribute to the research, including software, participant costs and any animal expenses. 

Students who received a Fall 2022/Spring 2023 IBACS grant are eligible for the summer award. However, students cannot take the summer IBACS award in combination with any other major summer award (e.g. SURF). Thus, a student can apply for multiple awards, but can only accept one. The results of the grant review will be given to the student awardees in time for them to make a decision about which grant they will accept, in case they receive more than one. 

The IBACS undergraduate award applications are reviewed based on the following criteria:

  • The project description is well written and clearly explains the project.
  • The project clearly focuses on a research area associated with the IBACS mission.
  • The budget is itemized, appropriate to the project described, and reports the total cost of the project (even if it exceeds the funding requested).
  • The advisor is familiar with the student’s project and rates the student’s work to date highly. 
  • Where project applications are equally meritorious, the reviewers will take note of how the student’s project will contribute to the advisor’s research goals.
  • The student and his/her project meet the eligibility criteria.
  • The student has secured research compliance approval(s) if necessary for the project. No award will be issued until documentation of approval(s) is received.
IBACS Summer 2023 Application: https://quest.uconn.edu/prog/ibacs_undergraduate_research_grant_-_summer_2023/
 Please visit our website for more information, including important tax details.

Call for IBRAiN Applications

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The Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences (IBACS) is inviting graduate students to apply for the IBACS-BIRC Research Assistantships in Neuroimaging (IBRAiN) Program. These graduate assistantships are for 10 hours per week during the Fall (2023) and Spring (2024) semesters at the Brain Imaging Research Center (BIRC). During the first year, assistants will be trained in neuroimaging methods, data science, and reproducibility. Assistants will spend the remaining allocated hours at BIRC, supporting users of BIRC facilities. This could involve helping design and implement experimental procedures for fMRI, EEG, TMS etc., recruitment and prepping of participants, data analysis, or overseeing use of equipment by others. Applicants will be expected to commit to the full duration of the assistantship (Fall & Spring). Funds may be available during Summer 2024 to enable IBRAiN students to pursue their own research at BIRC. IBRAiN students also receive an allocation of 20 hours of resource time to be used at BIRC during the course of the fellowship. 

Up to three students will be supported in the 2023-2024 cycle. Students will participate in common training activities, but will primarily specialize in one ofthree roles at BIRC. Applicants should indicate which role(s) they wish to be considered for. 

1. Research software engineer. This role assists researchers in data analysis, particularly functional MRI, using existing software, and engineering and implementing new analytic tools when needed. Qualified candidates will have demonstrated proficiency in Python, MATLAB, or Julia, and Unix like computing environments. 

2. User support. This role assists researchers in using BIRC facilities, including experimental design and setup, equipment training, data management, and maintaining documentation resources. Qualified candidates will have prior experience in designing and running in-person experiments. Familiarity with Python or MATLAB is preferred. 

3. MR Operator. This role assists researchers in obtaining functional and structural MRI data by learning how to operate the Siemens Prisma 3T MRI Scanner to perform brain research studies. Qualified candidates will have demonstrated an understanding of MRI safety, a high level of reliability, and the ability to work with participants across the lifespan.

The deadline for receipt of applications will be midnight on Friday, February 24, 2023

Subject to funding constraints, these assistantships could be renewed for a further year. Please refer to the full details and access the application on ourIBRAiN webpage. 

If you have any questions, please contact the Institute Coordinator, Crystal Mills at crystal.mills@uconn.edu.

Cog Sci Major Evan Zysman

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A senior in the Cog Sci major, Mr. Evan Zysman, was first author on a poster presentation this month at the Boston University Conference on Language Development. BUCLD is widely considered the most prestigious (and selective) conference in the field of child language acquisition. Evan will now be first author on a paper to be published in the conference proceedings.