INC's student and scholar program, with a membership of 30-40, offers access to technical reports, the videotape library, and the opportunity to take part in training programs. Undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows may become members providing they are sponsored by an INC faculty member.
The Center is administered by the INC. The purpose of this program is to support training and research on human cognition using techniques from neuroscience and computational modeling. Functional imaging of the human brain is a major focus of interest for researchers. The Center also supports graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
INC's Industrial Affiliates Program (IAP) fosters interaction between industry and the Institute; membership is available to corporations and individuals. Joining the Industrial Affiliates Program offers opportunities to interact with Institute personnel, to be kept abreast of the latest Institute research, and to have the opportunity to attract senior graduate students who may be interested in career opportunities.
Members benefit from this Program by attending Institute seminars, workshops, conferences and symposia. Copies of videotapes of seminars and symposia lectures, technical reports by INC researchers, and other publications are available free of charge to IAP members.
A directory of faculty research will give IAP members the opportunity of tracking the work of Institute researchers. One-on-one meetings with Institute researchers, whose expertise may assist IAP members with their research and development efforts, is also available. IAP members are informed of senior graduate students about to enter the job market.
IAP member firms can also arrange to participate in the Institute's visiting scholar program, in which a member's employee may conduct research "in residence" at the Institute for either brief periods (e.g., two weeks) or long periods (e.g., an academic year). Institute researchers may also travel to members' sites.
IAP membership is a unique opportunity for anyone who wants to be kept abreast of new developments as they happen and to interact directly with leading scientists in the field of neural computation.
The Institute maintains a lively seminar series that has brought to the campus distinguished researchers working at the forefront of neural computation. The seminar series program, held weekly, attracts an audience from the campus, industry, and the general public. Due to the widespread popularity of this program, INC now videotapes the lectures and maintains a videotape library for its members' use. Over 70 lectures are on file in the INC library.
INC sponsors the H. Paul Rockwood Memorial Lectureship held annually. The Rockwood Memorial Lectureship Fund was gifted to the Institute by Mr. and Mrs. Jerome Rockwood in memory of their late son's interest, studies, and work in the neural computation field. This lectureship has brought such distinguished lecturers as John Hopfield from the California Institute of Technology, David Rumelhart from Stanford University, James McClelland from Carnegie-Mellon University, and Stephen Grossberg from Boston University.
The Institute's Annual Research Symposium provides members with the latest research efforts over the past year. This all day event held in June is open to the INC members and the Industrial Affiliate Program members. In 1994, INC held the first Joint Symposium on Neural Computation with the California Institute of Technology.
Over the past few years, INC has sponsored and co-sponsored such special events as the Western Nerve Net meeting; special lectures featuring prominent scientists as K.S. Narendra from Yale University and Nobuo Suga from Washington University. The Institute plans to continue offering these and other quality programs and events in the future.
