Initiative 5. A New Generation of Experimental Modelers and Technologists
Led by CELEST PI member Ennio Mingolla
CELEST will ensure that a new generation of graduate and undergraduate students is trained in the nexus of computational, experimental, and technological aspects of the neuroscience of learning. CELEST graduate students are encouraged to choose courses that span experimental, modeling, and technological aspects of neuroscience. CELEST’s main strategy to ensure comprehensive training at the PhD level is to require that all supported projects have at least two faculty mentors for every graduate or postdoctoral assistant. Because each project must span at least two of the three areas of experimentation, modeling, and technological application, each graduate student or postdoctoral assistant is assured of direct experience in at least two of the three modalities on every project.
CELEST is helping to shape a vibrant new undergraduate curriculum by developing and offering interdisciplinary undergraduate courses that span computational and experimental approaches to the neuroscience of learning.
CELEST also offers summer lab internship research experiences and tutorial workshops to undergraduates who are predominantly selected from groups under-represented in the sciences.