The Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University have launched a training grant program in Computational Neural Engineering (CNE) with support from the National Institutes of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The program is charged with training the next generation of multidisciplinary researchers working at the intersection of computational neuroscience, data science, and clinical neurophysiology. It is designed to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the explosion of new tools for measurement and manipulation of nervous system function, and the challenges posed by the growing threat of neurological diseases and disorders on an expanding senior population.  

The program will leverage past successes in federally-funded training efforts that have helped to catalyze rapid and recent growth in research and education in Computational Neural Engineering across the Georgia Tech and Emory communities.

The award of nearly $1 million will support the traditional and innovative training activities of Ph.D. students in Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory, as well as Bioengineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Machine Learning Ph.D. programs at Tech, leveraging  the growing strength of Neural Engineering at both universities.

The new CNE Training Program is led by co-principal investigators Garrett Stanley and Lena Ting (both researchers in the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at Georgia Tech, where they are co-directors of the Neural Engineering Center), along with co-investigators Christopher Rozell and Jon Willie. 

Stanley is the Carol Ann and David D. Flanagan Professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory. Ting is a professor in the Coulter Department and in the Division of Physical Therapy in Emory’s Department of Rehabilitation Medicine. Rozell is a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Tech (where he also is a Petit Institute researcher), and Willie is an assistant professor of neurological surgery and director of the Laboratory for Behavioral Neuromodulation at Emory.