Preparing Future Researchers

KIBM is preparing the next generation of investigators for interdisciplinary research in brain and mind. Our innovative research grants provide funding to graduate students and postdoctoral scholars to pursue unusual hypotheses and collaborate with researchers in several academic areas. These interactions prepare the trainees for careers that will seed interdisciplinary efforts at UCSD and at other institutions.
We provide funding to the School of Medicine for hands-on training of graduate students and postgraduate researchers in functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging techniques.

During the year we host a series of events to bring together senior researchers with graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, and invite distinguished speakers to broaden their perspectives on cross-disciplinary issues. Foremost among these events is our annual Innovative Research Symposium where recipients of our research awards present their results to other researchers, the public, and trainees in the cognitive neuroscience program.

In spring 2007 we hosted 3 public lectures for our Distinguished Visitor, Daniel Geschwind (M.D. Ph.D.) from UCLA who gave a series of talks and workshops on genetic investigations of the brain and diseases, including autism, and developmental vulnerability to neurodegeneration.

In Winter 2007 we sponsored a one-day research workshop on The Emergence of Language Structures hosted by the Center for Research in Language and organized by Carol Padden, Maria Polinsky and Rob Kluender. Invited speaker, Simon Kirby (University of Edinburgh), talked about his current work on modeling cultural evolution or how knowledge is transmitted as the output of one individual becomes the input of the next.