REU Site: Neurotechnologies to Help the Body Move, Heal, and Feel Again

休斯顿大学（UH）的本科生研究经验（REU）网站奖将支持REU网站的更新，该网站的重点是“神经技术帮助身体运动、愈合和再次感受”。本网站将激励参与者充满信心地追求研究生教育和未来具有技术、道德和社会领导力的工程职业。REU网站每年夏天将为10名本科生与来自产学研合作研究中心的教师导师配对，以建立可靠的神经技术进步和创新（IUCRC BRAIN），在神经、认知和康复工程领域进行为期10周的研究、教育和推广经验。REU网站解决了社会当前对老龄化和残疾人口的关键需求，利用了IUCRC BRAIN目前的研究优势，并有望与本科生和公众产生共鸣，他们对医疗保健和创新健康管理设备的认识不断提高，并有兴趣解决国家对有效管理老龄化人口中慢性疾病的日益增长的需求。因此，本网站将为学生提供一个机会，促进安全、有效和负担得起的个性化神经技术的发展，用于诊断、恢复、增强和康复感觉、运动、情感和认知功能。为实现这一目标，将支持跨脑功能和行为多个维度的创新跨学科研究，最终目标是在促进代表性不足群体积极参与的包容性环境中改善国民健康。REU网站由来自休斯顿大学IUCRC BRAIN学院的杰出教师导师和创新者领导，指导本科生解决神经、认知和康复工程方面的重大挑战。REU的目标是激发、激励、培训和培养未来的本科生，并为那些在自己的机构可能没有机会获得研究经验的学生提供具有明显社会影响的项目研究经验。该网站将积极招募STEM领域和非研究机构中代表性不足的学生。在他们的REU经历结束时，学生将了解神经技术的社会影响，发展研究实验室技能和良好的工程实践，获得研究工具的实践培训，培养软技能，学习工程中的创新和创业精神，理解神经技术的伦理方面，欣赏和促进多样性的价值，公平，包容和获取研究，发展早期的指导技能。参加社会活动，促进学生之间的合作和合作氛围，同时了解社区。研究领域将包括但不限于设备开发、神经活动测量、神经调节、神经康复和辅助设备、人工智能在康复中的应用以及大脑研究。这个REU网站的最终目标是促进国民健康。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site award at the University of Houston (UH) will support the renewal of a REU Site focused on "Neurotechnologies to Help the Body Move, Heal, and Feel Again." This Site will inspire participants to pursue, with confidence, graduate education and future engineering careers with technical, ethical, and societal leadership. The REU site will pair 10 undergraduates per summer with faculty mentors from the Industry-University Cooperative Research Center for Building Reliable Advances and Innovations in Neurotechnology (IUCRC BRAIN), for a 10-week research, educational, and outreach experience in the field of neural, cognitive and rehabilitation engineering. The REU Site addresses society's current critical needs for the aging and disabled populations, leverages current research strengths in the IUCRC BRAIN, and is expected to resonate with undergraduate students and the general public, who have a rising awareness of healthcare and innovative health management devices and are interested in addressing the growing national need for effective management of chronic diseases in the aging population. Thus, this site will give students an opportunity to contribute to the development of safe, effective and affordable personalized neurotechnologies for diagnostics, restoration, enhancement, and rehabilitation of sensory, motor, affective, and cognitive functions. This goal will be pursued by supporting innovative interdisciplinary research across the multiple dimensions of brain function and behavior with the ultimate goal of improving the national health in an inclusive environment that promotes the active participation of underrepresented groups.The REU Site is led by an outstanding group of nationally recognized faculty mentors and innovators from the University of Houston's IUCRC BRAIN faculty to guide undergraduates in addressing grand challenges in neural, cognitive, and rehabilitation engineering. The goal of the REU is to excite, inspire, train, and nurture future undergraduates and to provide research experiences in projects with clear societal impact to students who might not otherwise have opportunities for research experiences at their own institutions. The site will actively recruit students underrepresented in STEM fields and from non-research institutions. At the end of their REU experience, students will understand the societal impact of neurotechnologies, develop research laboratory skills and good engineering practices, obtain hands-on training in research tools, cultivate soft skills, learn about innovation and entrepreneurship in engineering, understand the ethical aspects of neurotechnology, appreciate and promote the value of diversity, equity, inclusion, and access in research, develop early mentoring skills, and participate in social activities that promote a collegial and collaborative atmosphere among student participants, while learning about the community. Research areas will include, but are not limited to, device development, neural activity measurement, neuromodulation, neurorehabilitation and assistive devices, and artificial intelligence applications in rehabilitation, and brain research. The ultimate goal of this REU site is to advance the national health.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.