A National Science Foundation grant began filling the bank to fund MSU Graduate School research, student stipends and new equipment early this month.
The foundation’s Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training Grant was officially awarded to the graduate school’s cognitive science program Sept. 27. Beginning this month, the program will receive $2.5 million over the next five years.
“This is going to have a huge impact on graduate training and research in cognitive science on campus,” said John Henderson, a professor of psychology and director of the cognitive science program. “This will support a lot of new graduate students.”
The grant, “A Unified Approach to Sequential Decision Making in Cognitive Science,” is considered one of the highest recognitions a university program can receive.
Karen Klomparens, dean of the graduate school, said this is the first IGERT grant MSU has ever received. She said the university has applied for the grant before but wasn’t able to beat the heavy competition.
“I am very pleased for the faculty members, it’s a really excellent program,” Klomparens said. “It took a lot of time to put this together; we are very proud of all the faculty members who put forth the effort.”
A total of 22 IGERT grants were awarded this year to various programs in institutions nationwide.
“I’m very happy at the recognition that our program is getting, and I think that the NSF grant really indicates that our peers in the science community see us as a really strong program,” Henderson said.
Henderson said the cognitive science program is an interdisciplinary study of intelligence in biological and artificial systems, which includes the study of intelligence in humans and other biological organisms, intelligence in machines and the implementation of intelligence in the nervous system.
The grant money will also benefit undergraduate research programs and will allow undergraduate students to participate in research work with professors and graduate students, Henderson said.
About $500,000 of the grant will also be used to purchase equipment for research.
Fernanda Ferreira, a professor and associate chairperson of the Department of Psychology, was one of five faculty members who were involved with applying for and receiving the grant. She said the group had estimated its odds as low because of the number of applications submitted.
“There was such intense competition,” she said. “But now it has enhanced our research ability and our prestige and allows us to train a generation of scientists who will be at the forefront of relevant fields.”
