Announcements

IBACS Sponsored Talk: Dr. Matthew Sacchet on 2/2

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Talk Sponsored by The Institute for the Brain & Cognitive Sciences (IBACS): Dr. Matthew Sacchet from Harvard Medical School and Mass General

Date/Time: February 2, 2026, at 12:20pm (during TalkShop)

Location: SHH 101

Bio: Dr. Matthew D. Sacchet, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Meditation Research Program at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General). Dr. Sacchet and his team study advanced meditation: states, stages, and endpoints of meditative development and mastery. He has authored more than 150 publications that have been cited more than 10,000 times, and his work has been presented more than 170 times at international, national, regional and local venues including at Cambridge, Harvard, Oxford, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale Universities, and the United Nations. His research has appeared in leading scientific journals in the mind and brain sciences and psychiatry, including American Journal of Psychiatry, Biological Psychiatry, Cerebral Cortex, JAMA Psychiatry, Journal of Neuroscience, Molecular Psychiatry, Nature Mental Health, Neuropsychopharmacology, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and World Psychiatry. He has received generous support from numerous foundations and repeat awards from federal funding bodies in the United States, including the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation. His work has appeared in many major media outlets where it has been viewed many millions of times, including in 10% Happier, CBC, CBS, Forbes, Men’s/Women’s Health, NBC, New Scientist, NPR, Scientific American, TIME, Vox, and Wall Street Journal, and Forbes named him one of its “30 Under 30.” Dr. Sacchet is an Associate Editor of the leading meditation academic journal Mindfulness, and a Research Fellow of the Mind & Life Institute. He has been nominated for mentorship awards five times in the last five years.

Talk Abstract: Mindfulness has gained considerable momentum globally as an intervention for improving health and wellbeing. Beyond mindfulness, advanced meditation includes states, stages, and endpoints that result from mastery of meditation. Matthew D. Sacchet Ph.D. (Harvard/Mass General) will provide an overview of current directions in advanced meditation research that characterize the third wave of meditation research. The study and practice of advanced meditation promise incredible new opportunities for elevating human potential in diverse clinical and non-clinical contexts. See the Meditation Research Program’s website for more information: https://meditation.mgh.harvard.edu/

Welcome Back, IBACS Affiliates!

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Please find below some very important Spring 2026 reminders about our services:  
 

Staffing and Research Support 

 
IBACS affiliates can work with I-BRAIN Fellows, who offer specialized skills to support projects that use the Brain Imaging Research Core’s facilities. Please email us at ibacs@uconn.edu if interested.  
 

Research Facilities 

 
E-Lab is a shared research facility administered by IBACS. It offers space, equipment, training, and support for researchers who wish to monitor the human body’s physiological responses to a wide range of stimuli. Current equipment includes EEG (32 and 64 channel), eye-tracking, and tDCS.
 
MBNF is a shared research facility administered by IBACS. It provides behavioral phenotyping services for engineered mouse models and other mouse models with human clinical relevance.  
 
This shared facility is a mobile laboratory for research, community outreach, training, and clinical services. It is available to anyone in the UConn community by reservation. Click on the link above to view photos and the fee structure. IBACS affiliates can apply for awards to use SAM if funds are not available. 
 

Other Resources & Services 

 
Desks in Arjona 311 Available  
There are desk spaces available for graduate students, post-docs, visiting scholars, and sponsored undergraduates working in IBACS-affiliated labs in Arjona 311. Desks can either be signed out individually or if you plan to use the space sporadically, access can be provided to use our flex-space desks. Access to our kitchen/lounge and meeting rooms will also be provided. Please contact Crystal to sign out a desk.  
  
Arjona Meeting Space Available   
IBACS has three Arjona meeting/classroom spaces available for use by affiliates, including recent technology additions for hybrid participation. Please email Crystal to inquire about access to the spaces and making reservations (Arjona 324, 340, and 307 with capacity up to 22 people).    
 
Facilities, Resources, & Equipment Documentation for NIH/NSF Applications
The Institute offers extensive documentation of facilities, resources, and equipment that can serve as a template for your external grant application. Email Crystal to request a copy.
 
EAR supports faculty affiliates applying for competitive external awards. IBACS-affiliated investigators can submit their proposal drafts for formal review by an advisory committee, who will make recommendations for the final proposal. Additionally, external advisors with domain-specific expertise can provide input to significantly enhance the likelihood of achieving a fundable score.  
Open to: Faculty affiliates  
Key Application Dates: accepted on a rolling basis 
 
Seed Grants provide funding to eligible faculty for interdisciplinary projects and research initiatives. Successful applications typically involve collaborations that require expertise across laboratories and traditional disciplinary boundaries. We prioritize projects that will lead to publications and external awards. 
Open to: Faculty and postdoctoral affiliates 
Key Application Dates: Large awards (>$10K) spring deadline: April 1, 2026.
A reminder: All proposals with a UCH investigator must also have at least one Storrs investigator. We hope this will change as we negotiate future support from UCHC.  
 
IBACS offers funding for one-time or recurring meetings, workshops, and conferences that support the Institute’s mission.  
Open to: Faculty, graduate students, postdoctoral, and external affiliates  
Key Application Dates: accepted on a rolling basis until funds are exhausted 
 
IBACS affiliates can apply for awards to use our Science Alliance Mobile (SAM) for research or outreach. Please visit the webpage for more information and use the meeting/event support form to apply. 
 
This award provides funding for undergraduate students conducting an independent research project. The student’s project must contribute to the Institute’s mission. Students can apply for awards of up to $1,000.  
Open to: Undergraduate students working with an IBACS-affiliated faculty member  
Key Application Dates: spring deadline is February 2, 2026.  
 
This award provides funding for undergraduate students conducting an independent research project. The student’s project must contribute to the Institute’s mission. The award consists of $5,000  or a single summer. Students may use up to $3,500 of the award on fellowship funds to covering living expenses and remaining funds to purchase materials and equipment in support of the research project.    
Open to: Undergraduate students working with an IBACS-affiliated faculty member  
Key Application Dates: closes on January 30, 2026.  
 
These awards provide up to $500 to be used for meeting/conference travel expenses where data will be presented that aligns with the IBACS mission.  
Open to: Graduate student and postdoctoral affiliates; undergraduate students who are members of an IBACS-affiliated lab 
Key Application Dates: accepted on a rolling basis until funds are exhausted 
 
Have something you want to share with our affiliates? Please submit to the IBACS soapbox! Anyone can submit on topics such as events, training opportunities, course announcements, talks, funding opportunities, and more. Our soapbox is sent out to our listserv every other Monday at 2pm.  
  
The Institute is always looking to expand our base of University affiliates, helping researchers network and connect to generate collaborative research.  If you know of others in your department that would like to be affiliated with the Institute, please forward this email or recommend they check out the benefits of affiliation by clicking on the link above.   
 
Join the IDEA Committee
The IBACS Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) Committee meets monthly and focuses on facilitating activities and events that offer discussion around these topics for undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, post-docs, staff, and more in the brain and cognitive sciences community. All are welcome to join our committee to plan and run these events. Email us if you are interested!
   
Best wishes for a safe and productive semester ahead!  
  
Emily Myers, Director of Training, IBACS 
John Salamone, Director of Communication and Outreach, IBACS  
Holly R. Fitch, Interim Director of Research, IBACS 
Crystal Mills, Institute Coordinator, IBACS  

IBACS Undergraduate Summer Research Award Apps Due 1/30/26

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IBACS is offering another year of the undergraduate summer research awards! Please share with the undergraduate students in your labs.
 
Note: The summer award is different from the academic year research supply award application for up to $1,000 which is still open – the spring deadline is 2/2/26. See separate email for details. 
 
This summer award provides funding for undergraduate students conducting an independent research projectover the summer consistent with the Institute’s mission. Funds can be used for research supplies and a stipend to support students over the summer. Students can apply for awards of up to $5,000.
 
Open to: Undergraduate students working with an IBACS-affiliated faculty member. Students who received academic year funding are eligible to apply for the summer research grant program, provided that they are still a UConn student at the time.
Key Application Dates: The summer application deadline is January 30, 2026.
Applicants must fill out the online application including a research plan, budget, and letter of support from a faculty sponsor. The funding is meant to defray the research-related costs such as materials & supplies, software, animal or participant-related costs. The budget should reflect these expenditures.
The IBACS undergraduate award academic year applications are reviewed based on the following criteria:
  • The project description is well-written and clearly explains the project and the project timeline is feasible.
  • The project clearly focuses on a research area associated with the IBACS mission.
  • The budget is itemized, appropriate to the project described, and reports the total cost of the project (even if it exceeds the funding requested).
  • The faculty advisor is familiar with the student’s project and rates the student’s work to date highly.
  • Students are expected to develop the submission with the mentorship of their research advisor, and research mentors are encouraged to provide feedback to applicants, but the submission should be primarily the student’s own work. Where project applications are equally meritorious, the reviewers will take note of how the student’s project will contribute to the advisor’s research goals.
  • The student and his/her project meet the eligibility criteria.
  • The student has secured research compliance approval(s) if necessary for the project. No award will be issued until documentation of approval(s) is received.
Please visit the award webpage for more information and contact our Institute Coordinator, Crystal Mills at crystal.mills@uconn.edu f you have any questions.

Reminder: IBACS Undergraduate Research Supply Award Apps Due 2/2/26

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A reminder that the Institute for the Brain & Cognitive Sciences (IBACS) undergraduate research supply award spring 2026 deadline is February 2, 2026. Please share with the undergraduate students in your labs.
 
This academic year award provides funding for undergraduate students conducting an independent research project consistent with the Institute’s mission. Students can apply for awards of up to $1,000.
 
Note: The academic year supply award is different from the undergraduate summer research award, which is for up to $5,000 as it includes funds to support student living expenses over the summer. The application deadline for the summer award is 1/30/26. See separate email for details. 
 
Open to: Undergraduate students working with an IBACS-affiliated faculty member. Recipients cannot apply for another grant within the same academic year, however, are eligible for the summer research grant program, provided that they are still a UConn student at the time.
Key Application Dates: The fall deadline has passed; spring deadline is February 2, 2026.
Webpage Link: https://braincognitivesciences.institute.uconn.edu/services/undergraduate-research-supply-award/
Applicants must fill out the online application, and also submit via the online application, a relatively short research plan (maximum of 6,000 characters, approximately 3 pages). The funding is meant to defray the research-related costs such as materials & supplies, software, animal or participant-related costs. The budget should reflect these expenditures.
The IBACS undergraduate award academic year applications are reviewed based on the following criteria:
  • The project description is well written and clearly explains the project.
  • The project clearly focuses on a research area associated with the IBACS mission.
  • The budget is itemized, appropriate to the project described, and reports the total cost of the project (even if it exceeds the funding requested).
  • The faculty advisor is familiar with the student’s project and rates the student’s work to date highly.
  • The student and his/her project meet the eligibility criteria.
 
Please visit the award webpage for more information and contact our Institute Coordinator, Crystal Mills at crystal.mills@uconn.edu if you have any questions.

IBACS Summer 2026 Graduate Fellowship Application Now Open!

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The Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences (IBACS) is now inviting applications to its Graduate Fellowship Program.

These $5,000 summer fellowships are intended for graduate students working on topics with relevance to the Brain and Cognitive Sciences. This program prepares students to apply for competitive external funding and equips them with valuable career skills via a summer grant writing workshop taught by Prof. Nicole Landi. IBACS Graduate Fellows attend a short grant-writing workshop where they will write an NIH F31 or F32 application and participate in a mock review panel, styled after NIH review panels, during which fellows review peer applications. Students who eventually submit an NIH F31 or F32 will have the scientific portion of the application finished by the end of the workshop. Students interested in submitting NSF GRFP, NRSA (pre- or post-doctoral fellowship), or equivalent should still apply. 

Open to: IBACS Graduate student affiliates  

Key Application Dates: Opens on December 1, 2025, and closes December 31, 2025.  

Graduate students who are not US citizens are eligible to apply and are expected to work with their advisor to develop an external research proposal if they are not eligible for federal funding. Students who were fellows in summer 2025 may apply if they submitted the external grant proposal they developed last year and it was not funded, with the expectation that they will revise their previous grant or develop a new one. If you are fully funded for the summer period (e.g. you are a UConn Health graduate student or grant -funded), you are eligible to apply and attend the workshop without the funding component. If you are a student in any of these situations, please see the details on our website for more information. 

Please refer to the full details on our webpage, including eligibility and conditions on awards before you apply. If you have any questions, please contact Crystal Mills at crystal.mills@uconn.edu. 

Seed Grant Recipients 2025-2026

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IBACS Seed Grants provide funding for collaborative research projects across the brain and cognitive sciences. Seed Grants also support applications for equipment, research workshops, events, and other activities compatible with the mission of the Institute.

2025-2026 Recipients

Learn about the PIs and projects that received IBACS Seed Grants this year.

Alice Burghard, UCH Neuroscience

Title of Project: Development of an Objective Test for Tinnitus in Human Subjects

Tinnitus affects millions of people worldwide. Currently, there is no cure nor an objective test for tinnitus available. Our patented long-duration sound (LDS) stimulation paradigm revealed significant differences in auditory brainstem responses (ABR) between tinnitus and non-tinnitus mice. We will record ABRs in response to our LDS paradigm in human subjects with and without tinnitus to confirm our animal results and further optimize analysis parameters to detect tinnitus on an individual basis objectively.

Torri Woodruff-Gautherin, Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences

Title of Project: KEEP - Key Elements of Engaged Play: How parents and children play with toys

This project, KEEP (Key Elements of Engaged Play) is focused on developing a new way of describing how children and caregivers play with each other when using toys. Play is how children learn so finding new ways to describe it, specifically that apply to children who are D/deaf and Hard of Hearing is extremely important. The better we can describe the main parts of play, the better we can do research to understand play!

Michael Kienzler, Chemistry

Title of Project: Photoswitchable activators and inhibitors for the modulation of KCNQ channel function

TBD

Deborah Schneider, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: Stop, Feel, Go: How Emotions Affect Our Ability to Stop and Think

We all know emotions can interfere with decision-making, but exactly how does this work? This project tests how different types of emotional content—words we read or hear, and facial expressions—affect our ability to stop automatic responses. By understanding these relationships, we can better design research and interventions for people who struggle with impulse control and emotional regulation.

Natale Sciolino, Physiology and Neurobiology

Title of Project: Integrative Neuroscience of Addiction: Systems and Behavioral Effects of Ketamine Metabolites

Opioid use disorder causes severe withdrawal symptoms that current treatments often fail to address. Ketamine may ease these symptoms, but side effects limit its use. A metabolite, (2R,6R)-hydroxynorketamine (HNK), could offer a safer alternative, yet its role in withdrawal is unclear. Our project uses viral genetics, fiber photometry, and machine-learning behavior analysis to reveal how HNK influences key brain cell types during withdrawal—insights that could guide development of more effective therapies for opioid addiction.

Ian Stevenson, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: Statistical Models of Neural Activity with Latent Variables

Neuroscience experiments typically measure only a small fraction of the neurons that might be relevant to a behavior or disorder. Our goal in this project is to develop new statistical models to describe measurements that are available (spikes and local fields) and, also, accurately identify hidden factors (latent variables) driving neural activity. We will test our data analysis using simulations and analyze public experimental datasets to better characterize neural function and dysfunction.

Shuyan Wang, Linguistics

Title of Project: Early Language Development in Mandarin-English Bilingual Children: A Longitudinal Corpus Study

TBD

Kai Yu, Biomedical Engineering

Title of Project: Boosting Brain Signals with Ultrasound for Robotic Stroke Rehabilitation

After stroke, the brain signals that express a survivor’s intention to move can be too weak for brain-controlled assistive robots to read reliably. This project tests a new strategy: using precisely targeted, low-intensity focused ultrasound during attempted movement to modulate and strengthen those signals in real time. By making movement intentions more detectable, the system may allow robots to assist at the right moment, turning therapy into a more responsive, brain-guided recovery process.

Hanlin Zhou, Geography, Sustainability, Community, and Urban Studies

Title of Project: Mapping the Mind's Flood Risk Map: An AI-driven Analysis of Human Flood Risk Perception

This project aims to measure and explain subjective environmental risk perception across the New England region. It integrates human judgments of street view images from a survey with a deep learning computational framework to generate a high-resolution perceptual risk map. It also applies geospatial explainable artificial intelligence to identify how specific visual landscape features and individual-level factors drive intuitive human environmental risk assessments.

Ying Zhou, Statistics

Title of Project: How Alzheimer’s Proteins Affect Brain and Cognition

This project combines multiple types of brain data to understand how Alzheimer’s disease leads to memory and thinking problems. Using causal mediation analysis, we will separate the direct effects of toxic brain proteins from their indirect effects through changes in brain structure and function. By integrating this information, the study aims to clarify disease pathways and support earlier detection and better treatment strategies. 

Seed Grant Recipients 2024-2025

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IBACS Seed Grants provide funding for collaborative research projects across the brain and cognitive sciences. Seed Grants also support applications for equipment, research workshops, events, and other activities compatible with the mission of the Institute.

2024-2025 Recipients

Learn about the PIs and projects that received IBACS Seed Grants this year.

Stefanie Acevedo, Music Theory

Title of Project: Effects of athletic and musical training on synchronization in Javanese gamelan musical performance

Our research uses motion capture, EMG sensors, and behavioral experimentation to study sensorimotor synchronization during Javanese Gamelan performance, an Indonesian musical practice that is known for its “playability” by individuals with various levels of expertise. Javanese Gamelan represents a rich and complex social coordination phenomenon, and performances can involve multiple musicians coordinating complex nested rhythms. Due to the nature of musical performance, we hypothesize that both musical training and athletic training (understood as a type of temporally-mediated motor training) will influence the ability of subjects to synchronize in this musical environment. 

Tasso Tzingounis, Physiology & Neurobiology

Title of Project: KCNQ2 encephalopathy variants lead to global changes to the cortical phosphoproteome.

This project seeks to identify biological markers of KCNQ2 encephalopathy, a brain disorder linked to epilepsy, autism, and intellectual disabilities. As a common genetic cause of early-life epilepsy, KCNQ2 is frequently detected in genetic testing for children. Using advanced protein analysis techniques, the research will investigate how the disorder alters protein modifications in the brain. Aligned with IBACs' mission, the project explores how changes in brain cell activity during development shape the brain's structure and function.

Xingche Guo, Statistics

Title of Project: Integrative Modeling of Human Reward-Based Decision-Making in Behavioral Tasks

Human behavioral tasks reveal human decision processes, but studies focusing on a single task/study often miss the complexity and diversity of how people decide. This project combines data from multiple tasks and studies to address these gaps. By pooling diverse data, we will build a framework that captures varied decision strategies, improving prediction accuracy and broad applicability. Our work will deepen understanding of decision‑making and enhance mental health assessment.

Arielle Keller, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: Investigating Attention in Mental Disorders with Personalized Neuroscience

Attention allows our brains to focus on important information amid abundant distractions, and attention impairments can be debilitating for daily living. We aim to understand how attention differs in young adults experiencing depression or anxiety. Participants will complete several attentionally-demanding tasks while undergoing brain scanning. We will identify links between the unique features of each person’s brain and their attention abilities to improve our understanding of attention in mental disorders and inform future treatment development.

Wenrui Li, Statistics

Title of Project: Network-guided learning methods for advancing functional brain data analysis in Alzheimer’s disease research

Analysis of functional brain data, such as fMRI data, offers great promise for aiding in diagnosing Alzheimer's disease (AD) and its stages. Incorporation of brain network when analyzing functional brain data has the potential to improve the power of identifying important neuroimaging signatures for early detection, disease progression, and treatment response. This project aims to develop novel brain network-guided learning methods to predict the cognitive performance and detect neuroimaging signatures associated with AD.

Diane Lillo-Martin, Linguistics

Title of Project: Sign Language Annotation, Archiving, and Sharing (SLAASh)

The goals of the SLAASh project are to promote and expand scientific research on sign languages by sharing video data from signers along with metadata, annotations, and other textual materials to make the video data computationally searchable. The funded project focuses on activities associated with moving the ASL Signbank to UConn, expanding the capabilities of the database, and preparing for sharing materials with other researchers.

Jim Magnuson, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: Intermediate Language Models for modeling human language development, processing, and disorders

TBD

Katarina Millicevic, UCH Neuroscience

Title of Project: Understanding Early Brain Changes in Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer’s disease becomes irreversible after neurotoxic protein plaques accumulate. Early detection of subtle neuronal dysfunctions preceding plaque formation is essential. Evidence indicates that disruptions in neuronal communication—electrical signaling, synaptic potentials, and glutamate handling—occur early. Our study integrates measurements of amyloid‑β load, synaptic voltages, glutamate transients, and proteomic changes to develop an assay for early dysfunction detection, advancing diagnostics and enabling timely, effective interventions before irreversible damage ensues.

Scott Rich, Physiology and Neurobiology

Title of Project: Deciphering the mechanism of action of Vagus Nerve Stimulation in post-stroke rehabilitation

Despite the efficacy of vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) in improving post-stroke motor rehabilitation, there is limited understanding of the precise mechanism by which these therapeutic effects are achieved. Such knowledge is crucial to design treatment protocols optimized specifically for this setting. This research endeavors to derive such mechanisms using a combination of novel clinical data and computational modeling, precisely tracing how VNS modulated brain activity relevant to motor rehabilitation.

Greg Sartor, Pharmacy

Title of Project: The impact of opioid withdrawal on effort-based decision making

Opioid use disorder (OUD) is a chronic relapsing condition that affects millions of people worldwide. OUD patients may also experience anhedonia, motivational deficits, or depression, leading to poor treatment outcomes and higher rates of relapse. Better strategies to address depression, anhedonia, and other motivational deficits in OUD patients may improve relapse rates and overall recovery. The goal of the IBACS seed grant is to study motivation deficits during opioid withdrawal using the effort-based choice task (collaboration with Dr. Salamone lab and the Murine Behavioral Neurogenetics Facility). If successful, we will use this model to develop therapeutics that restore motivational deficits during opioid withdrawal. 

Erika Skoe, Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences

Title of Project: The confluence of musical training and noise exposure on the aging brain and body

Not everyone ages at the same rate. Some populations face more pronounced age-related health deterioration form the accumulated impact of disease and life stressors, while in others, biological aging occurs at a slower pace. We plan to use this project to develop proof-of-concept data on biological markers of aging using neuroimaging markers of brain age, in combination with an assay of biochemical and genetic markers of biological aging. We focus on two modifiable risk factors for biological aging: one with claimed protective properties (musical training) and the other with deleterious properties (noise exposure). The significance of this line of work lies in its potential to deepen our understanding of the modifiable risk factors to healthy aging.

Sudha Srinivasan, Kinesiology

Title of Project: Changes in neural biomarkers following play-based upper extremity (UE) training in children with Unilateral Cerebral Palsy (UCP)

Children with Unilateral Cerebral Palsy (UCP) have impairments lateralized to one side of their body due to asymmetric brain injury, with the upper extremity (UE) more involved than the lower extremity. Children face significant limitations during daily activities such as self-care, academics, and play, which negatively impacts their quality of life. Despite this unitary diagnosis, there is large heterogeneity among clinical profiles of children, driven by differences in the timing (before or after birth), cause (arterial or venous causes), location (brain malformations, periventricular white matter infarction, cortico-subcortical gray matter), and extent of brain injury (localized or diffuse injury), as well as the subsequent cortical reorganization. Identification of neural biomarkers underlying varying behavioral profiles can enhance our understanding of the impact of structural brain damage on subsequent function. Moreover, neural injury patterns may significantly influence children’s responsiveness to intensive behavioral interventions. Accurate characterization of the neural correlates of unimanual and bimanual sensorimotor function is crucial for individualized tailoring of rehabilitation interventions to the specific neurodevelopmental profiles of children with UCP and may be predictive of long-term outcomes among children. The project proposes to collect neuroimaging data from a subset of children (N=10) enrolled in a larger NIH-funded clinical trial designed to compare the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of 2 types of community-based play interventions on UE motor function among 30 children with UCP. If our hypotheses are upheld, we will collect pilot data supporting the efficacy of novel playful interventions to improve motor skills and neural function in children with UCP.

Whit Tabor, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: Using Linguistic Theory to Design Efficient, Interpretable Large Language Models

Large Language Models (LLMs) have recently revolutionized AI.   However, they suffer from two problems:   (1) training a model requires gargantuan energy consumption; (2) we do not currently understand the principles behind their successes.  This project investigates how insights from linguistic theory may help discern principles that underlie the models’ verbal abilities and simultaneously allow us to train them more efficiently by prompting them to attend to theoretically relevant features.

Eiling Yee, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: How the Brain Encodes Conceptual Similarity Across Object Features

Concepts allow us to interact effectively with the world by enabling us to communicate, categorize and make predictions about new experiences based on their similarity to things we already know. We aim to characterize, using fMRI, which brain areas encode conceptual similarity along features important for this critical function, like the actions we take with objects, or their typical color or shape. This finding may inform future interventions in conditions where conceptual knowledge is disrupted.

Publication Award Recipients 2024-2025

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IBACS Publication Awards provide funding to help researchers cover the cost of submitting their publications, providing affiliates with greater access to the top publications in their fields.

Travel Award Recipients 2024-2025

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IBACS Travel Awards help affiliated students and postdoctoral researchers cover expenses associated with presenting research at conferences and scholarly events.

2024-2025 Awardees

  • Holly Zaharchuk, Spring 2025
  • Heather Robinson, Spring 2025
  • Antonio Reck, Spring 2025
  • Wesley Leong, Spring 2025
  • Emma Wing, Spring 2025
  • Ishrat Khan, Spring 2025
  • Mokshitha Chimbili, Fall 2024
  • Zeinab Tajik Mansouri, Fall 2024
  • Matthew Frost, Fall 2024

Undergraduate Research Award Recipients 2024-2025

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The Undergraduate Research Supply Award provides students with funds that they can use toward supplies and other expenses associated with an ongoing independent research project. The Undergraduate Summer Research Award provides funds for students to conduct independent research during the summer session.

Summer 2025

Summer Research Award Recipients

  • Briana Ashton – Advisor: Lindsay Butler
  • Amna Besirevic – Advisor: John Salamone
  • Varun Chamarty – Advisor: Timothy Spellman
  • Jada Fong – Advisor: Andres Grosmark

Fall 2024 & Spring 2025

Supply Research Award Recipients

  • Amna Besirevic – Advisor: John Salamone
  • Carly Furlong – Advisor: Akshay Maggu
  • Anja Kearney – Advisor: Feliks Trakhtenberg
  • Sofia Papanikolaou – Advisor: John Salamone
  • Neha Samuel – Advisor: Sudha Srinivasan
  • Amelia Schaefer – Advisor: Alice Burghard
  • Ava Williams – Advisor: Robert Astur
  • Michelle Zhu – Advisor: Adrian Garcia-Sierra