NIH Finances Graduate Education for Neural Engineering Research
Penn State University is set to introduce a new training program in Neural Engineering, starting Spring 2026. The program, funded by a $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will officially commence on January 12, 2026.
The program aims to foster interdisciplinary collaborations, with faculty and students affiliated with the Center for Neural Engineering coming from departments across multiple colleges and graduate programs. This cross-disciplinary approach is expected to lead to significant advances in research related to overall brain function and brain health.
Bruce Gluckman, co-principal investigator on the grant, director of the Center for Neural Engineering, and professor of ESM, BME, and neurosurgery, expressed his optimism about the program. He believes that the program will provide a platform for experts in a certain field to readily work across disciplinary boundaries, leading to groundbreaking discoveries.
The program will offer weekly meetings for feedback on research ideas, discussions on quantitative methods, research design, methods for avoiding cognitive bias, and working across disciplinary boundaries. It will also place an emphasis on ethics, led by Laura Cabrera, an associate professor of neuroethics in ESM and a co-hire with the Rock Ethics Institute in the College of the Liberal Arts.
The ethics component of the program is designed to prepare scholars for successful careers in the sciences, ensuring they are well-versed in the ethical implications of their research. Embedding ethics into all research and the way research is conducted is a significant aspect of the program's training, according to Gluckman.
In addition to academic guidance, the program will provide professional development opportunities, including seminars on grant writing and funding applications. It will also offer training modules for students to go through at their own pace. Administrators will organize scientific journal reading groups and an annual retreat with speakers and team building activities.
The program will fund fellowships for about three graduate students per year who are in the third and fourth years of their doctoral programs, starting this fall. It will also encourage students and faculty to work extensively with people from different backgrounds and fields.
Notably, there is currently no graduate program specific to the field of neural engineering at Penn State. This new program will provide a formal academic structure for neural engineering students. The benefits of the program will extend to any STEM student interested in neural engineering and cross-disciplinary quantitative neuroscience.
Jin, a program administrator, emphasized the program's goal to produce unique and well-trained scientists who are versed in multiple technical fields and statistics, and aware of cognitive biases. The program is designed to encourage collaboration among STEM students and faculty, with faculty members coming from anthropology, biomedical engineering, electrical engineering, engineering science and mechanics, math, mechanical engineering, neuroscience, and physics.
In summary, the new Neural Engineering program at Penn State University, funded by a $1.5 million NIH grant, promises to foster interdisciplinary collaborations, provide academic and professional development opportunities, and promote ethical research practices. The program aims to produce well-rounded, versatile scientists who will contribute significantly to the field of neural engineering.
