| NSF Org: |
SMA SBE Office of Multidisciplinary Activities |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | February 20, 2013 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | August 27, 2015 |
| Award Number: | 1263405 |
| Award Instrument: | Continuing Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Josie S. Welkom
SMA SBE Office of Multidisciplinary Activities SBE Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences |
| Start Date: | September 1, 2013 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2017 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $289,255.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $289,255.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2014 = $96,120.00 FY 2015 = $97,006.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
9500 GILMAN DR LA JOLLA CA US 92093-0021 (858)534-4896 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
CA US 92093-0934 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | RSCH EXPER FOR UNDERGRAD SITES |
| Primary Program Source: |
01001415DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001516DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 04001213RB NSF Education & Human Resource 04001415RB NSF Education & Human Resource 04001516RB NSF Education & Human Resource |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.075 |
ABSTRACT
The faculty and researchers in the Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center (UCSD) are engaged in REU Site with the overall aim of providing undergraduate students a research experience that leads to publishable work in a new interdisciplinary area studying the role of time and timing in learning, at multiple time and spatial scales, from the scale of synapses operating at the millisecond timescale up to the scale of teachers and students interacting over months. This project allows the team to give REU students access to all of the facilities and activities of the Center, including a state-of-the-art motion capture/brain dynamics facility, regular meetings of research networks composed of highly interdisciplinary and collaborative faculty, postdocs, graduate students and undergraduate researchers from more than seventeen institutions in the US, Canada, and Australia, and a yearly All Hands Meeting where they present their results. In addition to the training REU students receive in the individual laboratories, extensive professional development opportunities are provided through workshops, an undergraduate research conference, panel discussions, and GRE preparation courses.
Intellectual Merit
The intellectual merit of this proposal is the advancement of a new science of the Temporal Dynamics of Learning through undergraduate research experiences in highly productive laboratories, and training in collaborative, rather than competitive, research. The research field is inherently interdisciplinary, combining cognitive science, psychology and computer science.
Broader Impacts
A significant number of under-represented minorities are recruited from local community colleges (as it is a school-year program), resulting in the training of a diverse group of future scientists advancing the science of learning from multiple perspectives. The PI-team taps into established working relationships with these institutions in order to ensure an adequate applicant pool from the honors program, and use recommendations by their professors so that they can enroll the best students in the program.
The site is co-funded by the Department of Defense in partnership with the NSF REU program.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center's REU Site program's goal was to provide each undergraduate student a research experience that leads to publishable work in a new interdisciplinary area studying the role of time and timing in learning, at multiple time and spatial scales, from the scale of synapses operating at the millisecond timescale up to the scale of teachers and students interacting over months. The program was designed to give students a 30-week, school-year experience - a much longer time span than the usual eight week summer program. This design gave the students time to bring their work to maturity, and to conduct experiments in learning that were over a 9 month time span. The students were trained in the specific research areas of TDLC, including machine learning, cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience.
This experience performing cutting-edge research had a strong effect on our trainees' outcomes. On average, more than half of our trainees went on to graduate school, about 10% went to medical school, about 20% were hired as research assistants in UCSD labs - which usually will lead to grad school applications later, and about 20% went into industry. This is a very strong result, as greater than 70% ended up pursuing careers in science. Hance we have had a strong effect on the scientific workforce.
Our trainees participated in scientific discoveries and the development of tools to advance science. Many of our trainees learned to perform brain surgery, albeit on rats! These trainees have contributed to our understanding of how the brain works. Some of our trainees learned about cutting-edge machine learning - deep networks - and their application to scientific problems, such as Brain-Computer Interfaces, (BCI), or analyzing images. Some of our trainees worked on educational technology that will lead to improved educational outcomes, and some worked on technology for helping children with Autism to better interact with the world. We are extremely proud of our trainees and the work they have performed.
Finally, a word about diversity. Of the total 68 trainees, 11 were community college-enrolled students (16%) and 27 were identified as URMs (40%), including19 Hispanic trainees (28%) one American Indian trainee and 7 AfricanAmerican trainees (10%). Thirty-one of our trainees have been female (46%). We hope that we have made a small but significant contribution to diversifying our scientific and industrial workforce.
Last Modified: 12/15/2017
Modified by: Garrison W Cottrell
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