Call for proposals: COGS student-faculty research collaboration
The Cognitive Science Program is pleased to announce another 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 student(s) should be active students for the duration of the project (e.g. if the timeline extends into the Fall 2026 semester, the student should still be active in the Fall).
Deadline:
March 15, 2026
Funding decisions will be made by March 30, 2026
Visit the award webpage to apply!
If you have any questions about this award, please email cogsci@uconn.edu.
Next COGS Graduate Certificate Deadline: 3/1
“Meet the Directors” Drop-in Event
Join us on Friday, 2/6 from 9-10am in Arjona 339.
The Cognitive Science Program is hosting a casual “Meet the Directors” drop-in event. Feel free to stop by and meet Dr. Dimitris Xygalatas, the Director of the COGS Program, Dr. Adrian Garcia-Sierra, our COGS Director of Undergraduate Studies, and Crystal Mills, the program coordinator for COGS. Whether you have questions to ask or you just want to introduce yourself, please come by!
You can’t make it, but you have questions? Email us at cogsci@uconn.edu.
IBACS Sponsored Talk: Dr. Matthew Sacchet on 2/2
Talk Sponsored by The Institute for the Brain & Cognitive Sciences (IBACS): Dr. Matthew Sacchet from Harvard Medical School and Mass General
Date/Time: February 2, 2026, at 12:20pm (during TalkShop)
Location: SHH 101
Bio: Dr. Matthew D. Sacchet, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Meditation Research Program at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General). Dr. Sacchet and his team study advanced meditation: states, stages, and endpoints of meditative development and mastery. He has authored more than 150 publications that have been cited more than 10,000 times, and his work has been presented more than 170 times at international, national, regional and local venues including at Cambridge, Harvard, Oxford, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale Universities, and the United Nations. His research has appeared in leading scientific journals in the mind and brain sciences and psychiatry, including American Journal of Psychiatry, Biological Psychiatry, Cerebral Cortex, JAMA Psychiatry, Journal of Neuroscience, Molecular Psychiatry, Nature Mental Health, Neuropsychopharmacology, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and World Psychiatry. He has received generous support from numerous foundations and repeat awards from federal funding bodies in the United States, including the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation. His work has appeared in many major media outlets where it has been viewed many millions of times, including in 10% Happier, CBC, CBS, Forbes, Men’s/Women’s Health, NBC, New Scientist, NPR, Scientific American, TIME, Vox, and Wall Street Journal, and Forbes named him one of its “30 Under 30.” Dr. Sacchet is an Associate Editor of the leading meditation academic journal Mindfulness, and a Research Fellow of the Mind & Life Institute. He has been nominated for mentorship awards five times in the last five years.
Talk Abstract: Mindfulness has gained considerable momentum globally as an intervention for improving health and wellbeing. Beyond mindfulness, advanced meditation includes states, stages, and endpoints that result from mastery of meditation. Matthew D. Sacchet Ph.D. (Harvard/Mass General) will provide an overview of current directions in advanced meditation research that characterize the third wave of meditation research. The study and practice of advanced meditation promise incredible new opportunities for elevating human potential in diverse clinical and non-clinical contexts. See the Meditation Research Program’s website for more information: https://meditation.mgh.harvard.edu/
Cognitive Science Travel Award Program
COGS Colloquium: Dr. Cat Hobaiter on 11/14
Talk Co-hosted by COGS & ECOM: Dr. Cat Hobaiter from the University of St Andrews
Date/Time: Friday, 11/14/25 from 4:00pm – 5:30pm EST
Location: McHugh Hall 205
Bio: Cat is a field primatologist who has spent the past 20 years studying wild primates across Africa. She is a Professor in Origins of Mind at the University of St Andrews where she leads the Wild Minds Lab. The main focus of her research is the communication and cognition of wild apes. Through long-term field studies she explores what the behaviour of modern apes living in their natural environment tells us about their minds, as well as about the evolutionary origins of our own behaviour. She is the director of three long-term chimpanzee field-sites in Uganda and Guinea.
Talk Title: Storytelling apes: ape gesture and the evolution of human language
Abstract: Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. Three years ago, I was on a remote expedition with a small group of people with whom I had essentially no language in common. Over the weeks we found built huts, mapped the area, cooked, ate, and laughed together. We started to swap a few phrases, but most of our daily life was managed without language. A long list of human behaviours has been proposed as the reason we have language. But decades of research with other apes have shown us that 1) they have rich systems of flexible, intentional, meaningful, communication, and also that 2) apes and other species do not need language to learn from each other, to organize where and when to forage, to learn cultural knowledge about tools and songs, to co-ordinate hunting, or navigate social politics. It starts to look like human language didn’t evolve for anything useful. But could we simply have been looking in the wrong place? Ten years ago, anthropologist Polly Wiessner made the provocative suggestion that fire was the fundamental driver of human social behaviour. While the day-to-day conversations of the forager peoples she worked with were about mundane practicalities and gossip, fireside conversations are different: they are used for telling stories. I will review what we have learned about other apes’ rich systems of communication so far, and ask—at the end of the day—are we the storytelling ape?
Meetings: Dr. Hobaiter will be available for meetings at UConn from 11/12 – 11/14. If you are interested in meeting with her on any of these days or attending dinner in the evening on Friday, please email crystal.mills@uconn.edu.
Attached is the talk flyer for posting. Please email Crystal if you have questions.
Call for proposals: COGS student-faculty research collaboration
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
- 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.
28th Annual Neuroscience at Storrs symposium on Nov 6th, 2025
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)
Tenure track faculty positions open to grad students at Boise
We sincerely appreciate any assistance you can provide in getting this opportunity in front of your students. If you have any questions or require further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me at kristenmartin@boisestate.edu.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Kristen
Senior Recruiter
COGS Colloquium on 10/3: Dr. Catherine S. Tamis-LeMonda from New York University
Date/Time: Friday, 10/3/25 from 4:00pm – 5:30pm EST
Location: McHugh Hall 302
Meetings: If you are interested in meeting with Dr. Tamis-LeMonda during the day or attending dinner in the evening on Friday, please email crystal.mills@uconn.edu.
Talk Title: Word learning in context: Disambiguating the ambiguous
Abstract: The pace and breadth of early vocabulary development is impressive to say the least. Infants grow from producing their first words around 12 months to using over 500 words by 2 ½ years. How do infants crack the code to acquire so many words in a relatively short period of time? Our theoretical framework emphasizes the embodied and embedded nature of learning: Infants actively engage with their environments in the presence of socially responsive partners who provide semantically relevant input within a tight time window during highly specific activity contexts. The tight temporal connection between infant action, caregiver speech, and activity context cuts across word classes—nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions—thereby functioning to ‘disambiguate the ambiguous’.