Department OverviewThe emergence of the Brain & Cognitive Sciences as strong new academic disciplines is recognized in the founding of the department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester. The Department is home to 17 faculty with primary appointments and to closely associated faculty with primary appointments in other departments. Our faculty and their research programs are a major intellectual force, with national and international reputations in several fields. Our research spans a large domain and straddles several disciplines in the behavioral, neural and computational sciences, but all our work is connected by the idea that to understand behavior we must study not only behavior but also the processes—both neural and computational—that underlie it. The importance of this work is recognized both in the numerous honors conferred on faculty, and in their great success in attracting funds to support their research (principally from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation). Our commitment to research also means a commitment to train future research workers, and here too we have an outstanding record, attracting students of the highest caliber into our graduate program and investing heavily in them while they work with us. Undergraduates too have a major place in this new enterprise: we believe very strongly that study of the Brain & Cognitive Sciences provides a superb general intellectual training, and a marvelous opportunity for students to engage themselves in research work with faculty and learn the logic of scientific enquiry. This conviction is reflected in the structure of our undergraduate programs, which offer students a wide range of opportunities to explore the breadth and depth of our discipline. Our Department provides a focus for studying cognition, complex behavior, and brain function. But we also recognize this pursuit as an interdisciplinary endeavor, and the Department and its members have strong ties to associated programs in other academic departments and centers, notably Computer Science, Linguistics, Music, Visual Science, and several neuroscience departments in the Medical Center. It is important to point out that students with interests in one or more of these associated programs can take courses and obtain research experiences with faculty in any of these units, while maintaining a primary connection to the program in Brain & Cognitive Sciences. Related Links |
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