Spelman Seeks CSNE Mentors

Spelman Seeks CSNE Mentors for Neural Informatics and Robotics Projects

Spelman College faculty and students seek sensorimotor neural engineering mentors and partners for three NSF funded grant projects in informatics and in robotics from CSNE partner institutions. Spelman is a historically black college for women located in Atlanta, GA and is a CSNE partner.

The ASPIRE program (Advancing Spelman's Participation in Informatics) is directed by Dr. Andrew Williams, chair and associate professor in computer sciences and seeks to develop curriculum and internal interdisciplinary faculty and undergraduate student teams in informatics. With Spelman's new partnership with CSNE, Dr. Williams hopes that Spelman will be able to work with CSNE partner institutions to create curriculum and conduct research in "neural informatics" to mine the rich information and signals that the brain and nervous system send to the human body.

Also, the NSF funded SpelBots, which Dr. Williams also directs, is seeking CSNE mentors for conducting research and creating curriculum in "neural robotics". The SpelBots conduct research through Spelman's Humanoid Engineering and Robot Systems (HERS) lab and currently have several Nao humanoid robots along with other robot systems. The SpelBots have competed internationally in humanoid robot soccer and the students have won national undergraduate research awards. The SpelBots consist of students in computer science, math, physics, biology and dual degree engineering. With a CSNE mentor, the SpelBots hope to extend their experience with robotics with sensorimotor neural engineering skills and projects.

Through the NSF funded Global STEM, or G-STEM, program, Spelman is seeking international study abroad opportunities for students in computer science and other STEM fields.

Spelman, an undergraduate institution, has been cited in recent years by NSF as having the second most African American students that go on to graduate with PhDs in STEM. Dr. Williams can be reached at williams@spelman.edu.