TRAINING PROGRAM IN INTEGRATIVE DEVELOPMENTAL PROCESS

Trustees Of Indiana University, Bloomington IN

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Development is about creating something more from something less -a limb or heart or brain from a mass of identical cells, a walking talking toddler from a helpless crying infant, a child who reasons about time, number and space from one whose judgments are tightly tied to the immediate perceptual input. Advancing knowledge suggests that these remarkable consequences are the product of a self-organizing system emergent in nested processes and mutually interacting mechanisms over many time scales and levels of analysis. If we are to understand developmental mechanisms, then, scientists must be trained to integrate processes of change at different levels of analysis - from the brain to behavior - and at different times scales --from the milleseconds of neuronal activity to the seconds and minutes of tasks to the days, months and years of learning and growth. Accordingly, funds are requested to support 5 pre-doctoral and 4 post-doctoral trainees in a strongly collaborative and interdisciplinary community with a shared vision of an integrative approach to both training and research. The Training faculty forms a close-knit community from 5 units at Indiana University (Psychology, Speech and Hearing Sciences, Optometry, Computer Science, Kinesiology). Training is accomplished through course work, research in the laboratories of the faculty, and specialized training seminars, workshops, and colloquia. All trainees are required to work in at least two laboratories and must attend the on-going integrative DTG seminar. We require active participation in two laboratories so that trainees may go beyond their primary mentor in synthesizing methods and advances at different levels of analyses and times scales, and in so doing be prepared to be at the forefront of where developmental science is going. In brief, this is a forward-looking training program built on a strong and continuing base of theoretically driven, highly interdisciplinary, and collaborative research among faculty and trainees, and one that has, to date, been highly successful in producing exciting young scientists ready to make their mark.