WORKSHOP: Doctoral Consortium at the 2016 International Conference of Mobile Brain-Body Imaging (MoBI) and the Neuroscience of Art, Innovation and Creativity

University Of Houston, Houston TX

Investigators

Abstract

This is funding to provide partial support for the 2016 International Conference of Mobile Brain-Body Imaging (MoBI) and the Neuroscience of Art, Innovation and Creativity. The conference's goal is to identify the challenges and opportunities for engaging the creative arts to promote novel and innovative approaches for solving complex problems in science, engineering, education and medicine. The meeting, to be held at Live Aqua, Cancun on July 24-27, 2016, is being jointly organized by the University of Houston in Texas and the Technical University of Berlin, Germany. The agenda is designed to examine the state of the art, to promote audience-driven discussions whose content is defined by the participants themselves, and to facilitate collaborations and interactive demonstrations and performances. A roadmap summarizing the meeting's findings will be prepared and submitted for peer-review as part of a Special Issue in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, a first-tier electronic open access journal. Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, taking part in the Doctoral Consortium program at the conference, will capture summaries of the group interactions and final group briefings that describe the challenges addressed and outline the approach(es) identified for solving them, including what research needs to be done to understand the fundamental science behind each challenge, a plan for promoting trans-disciplinary collaboration and innovation, the reasoning behind the plan, and the expected benefits to society. In terms of STEAM (STEM + Art) outreach, conference attendees will represent a wide range of experience and expertise, from graduate students to well-established scientists, clinicians, artists, engineers, media, and industry. The Doctoral Consortium for selected graduate students and postdocs will provide an opportunity for the students to network while exploring and developing their research interests within the context of an interdisciplinary conference, under the guidance of a distinguished group of international researchers, artists and innovators. The organizers will actively recruit student participants from under-represented groups, including women and minorities, and across institutions, with a maximum of two students per institution (and if two then one must be a female). To achieve MoBI's ambitious goals, the organizers will convene thought leaders and innovators from academia, medicine, the arts, and technology to explore the myths, challenges and opportunities of research at the intersection of these disciplines in the context of a 3-day conference in a unique setting selected to foster discussion, interaction and collaboration, leading to a strategic plan that exploits the creative arts to advance science and engineering across critical areas, including: (a) uncovering the basic neural mechanisms underlying aesthetic and creative experiences (reverse engineering of the human brain); (b) the artistic, scientific and engineering challenges that affect collaboration and innovation; and (c) how to design new tools for understanding and promoting innovation and creativity. The conference will be organized around a number of tracks: Mobile Brain-Body Imaging (MoBI) Technologies; Cognitive, Medical and Pedagogical Applications; and Cognitive and Affective Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs).