The UCLA Brain Research Institute (BRI), the UCLA School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS), and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have joined forces in a major new educational program, the NeuroEngineering Training (NET) Program. This program is supported by the National Science Foundation IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education and Training) Program. IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to facilitate the establishment of innovative, research-based graduate programs that will train a diverse group of scientists and engineers to be well-prepared to take advantage of a broad spectrum of career options. The IGERT program provides doctoral institutions with an opportunity to develop new, well-focused multidisciplinary graduate programs that transcend organizational boundaries and unite faculty from several departments or institutions to establish a highly interactive, collaborative environment for both training and research.
The NET Program is a joint endeavor of the Interdepartmental Ph.D. Program for Neuroscience and the Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. Program in SEAS, with the active involvement of scientists from JPL. This cooperative effort is perhaps unique in that it encourages students to work at the relatively underdeveloped but fertile interface between engineering and neuroscience.