PCAN prospective trainees - PCAN - Carnegie Mellon University

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Pursue your training with us in Pittsburgh!

Join Us! We are always interested in welcoming curious and motivated people to the group. Adventurous, collaborative and adaptable personalities with a sense of humor will fit into our community well. Our trainees are diverse in their interests and backgrounds, with students and post-docs arriving with educational backgrounds in Neuroscience, Psychology, Cognitive Science, Engineering, Linguistics, and Communication Sciences and with cultural backgrounds from around the world.

Benefits of PCAN. One of the benefits of PCAN is that trainees are welcomed into a vibrant and interactive multi-lab group. This expands the opportunities for intellectual exchange and socializing outside a single lab, and opens rich opportunities for cross-training with multiple mentors (either formally or informally). Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh are immediately adjacent to one another, making it easy to interact. The institutions' complementary strengths diversify training, with trainees eligible to take coursework at both institutions. We share imaging facilities and graduate training programs, making for deep interconnections.

Questions? If you are interested to find out more or are confused by the multiple opportunities (and their somewhat different admissions procedures), please feel free to be in touch with any of the PCAN faculty or trainees. You will find contact information under PCAN people.

2019 Welcome to Prospective Trainees Letter

Living and Working in Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh is an affordable and fun city to live and work. But, don't just take our word for it!

What Millenials Love about Pittsburgh, The Atlantic
Pittsburgh Accolades and Rankings
2019 Top 10 Places to Live
2018 #2 Most Livable (just behind Honolulu!)

Prospective Graduate Students

Our students are training in a variety of PhD programs, dependent in part on their primary mentor.

Lori Holt trains students through the following programs: PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience (CMU), PhD in Psychology (CMU), PhD in Neuroscience (Pitt), PhD in Neural Computation (CMU)

Barbara Shinn-Cunningham trains students through the following programs: PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience (CMU), PhD in Psychology (CMU), PhD in Neural Computation (CMU), PhD in Bioengineering (CMU)

Bharath Chandrasekaran trains students through the following programs: PhD in Communication Sciences and Disorders (Pitt)

Whatever your PhD program, we welcome cross-laboratory mentoring. We can realize this by cross-institutional and cross-departmental dissertation committees as well as collaborative research projects.

Our trainees benefit from the joint CMU-Pitt graduate training program offered through the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition. This program provides additional training in Systems Neuroscience, Cellular Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience and Computational Neuroscience to complement students' training in their home PhD programs.

Collectively, we take an individualized approach to training. Students can expect an immersive 'apprentice' experience in learning to become an independent researcher.

All of our PhD students are fully funded (tuition, stipend and health insurance costs are covered). In addition, PhD students pursuing auditory research in Pittsburgh are eligible to apply for multiple NIH-supported training grants:

Behavioral-Brain (B2) Research Training Program (co-Directors, Lori Holt and Julie Fiez)
Program in Neural Computation
Training in Auditory and Vestibular Research (co-Directors, Karl Kandler and Bill Yates)

In sum, we can find a graduate training program that fits your interests. This diversity of options can be a bit overwhelming to understand. Please feel free to be in touch with PCAN faculty and trainees to ask questions during the application process.

Prospective Post Doctoral Researchers

We are always interested to hear from PhD interested to continue their training as a postdoctoral scholar in Pittsburgh. PCAN laboratories work closely, expanding the opportunities for cross-cutting mentorship and training. In particular, there is a close relationship fostered by joint funding across Barbara Shinn-Cunningham's laboratory at CMU, Lori Holt's laboratory at CMU, and Bharath Chandrasekaran's laboratory just steps away at University of Pittsburgh.