Community Values
The Neuroscience Institute at Carnegie Mellon University strives to be a community that is academically and intellectually rigorous, while being welcoming and respectful to all of its members. We aspire to promote a collegial professional environment in which all individuals can thrive and do their best work with community support and free from harassment, intimidation or disrespect.To this end, we value the unique individuality brought by every member of the NI’s faculty, staff, and students. We strive to mitigate explicit and implicit barriers that reduce participation and access to resources, so that all community members can learn, work, and achieve at the highest levels. We believe that every person at CMU should feel as though they belong here.
Progress Highlights
Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship Program
Each spring, the NI seeks diverse, creative, and collaborative early-career applicants for its Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. NI Fellows receive an annual stipend of $55,000, full benefits, and a professional development fund of up to $5,000 per year. The program seeks to bring new perspectives and voices to our community; researchers already in CMU laboratories are ineligible. Up to two fellowships (renewable annually, typically for two years) are awarded per year.
Learn more about the CMU Rales Fellows Program.
Outside Partnerships
We participate in the GEM Fellowship Program, which invests in America’s workforce in the engineering, physical science, and life science disciplines to overcome one of the most pervasive barriers to pursuing an advanced degree: identifying and securing funding for graduate education.
Research Opportunities for Undergraduate Students
We advertise research opportunities for undergraduate students studying neuroscience at CMU. The opportunities may be paid or un-paid on a case-by-case basis, and some may qualify for work-study. By highlighting these research positions on our website, we aim to surface the opportunities that would otherwise remain implicit and available only to students who are already emboldened to seek them.
We also are making plans to implement training for undergraduate students about how to approach faculty to pursue opportunities such as these. This training will come in the form of presentations that will be presented to students in seminar courses and/or made accessible online.
Past Initiatives
Resources
How can we do better?
We welcome creative suggestions for how we can make the Neuroscience Institute a more inclusive community.
