NSF awards SU BioInspired Institute $3 million grant to develop graduate training program in emergent intelligence

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Syracuse University’s BioInspired Institute will use a $3 million federal grant to create a training program for doctoral students in emergent intelligence.

The U.S. National Science Foundation’s research traineeship program awarded the funding, SU said in its Monday announcement.

The program is called NRT-URoL: Emergent Intelligence Research for Graduate Excellence in Biological and Bio-Inspired Systems (EmIRGE-Bio). It will support the integration of research and education on emergent intelligence in both biological and bio-inspired systems and allow doctoral students to “work and experience team building across disciplinary and departmental boundaries,” the school said.

Lisa Manning, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Physics in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) is the program’s principal investigator (PI).

“Many of society’s most pressing challenges — including food security, sustainability and supporting aging populations — will require breakthroughs in biotechnology and bio-inspired science,” Manning said in the SU announcement. “This program will train a new generation of scientists and engineers who can evaluate and harness complex systems, such as biological tissues or next-generation materials, to drive intelligent responses such as sensing, actuating and learning, leading to breakthrough technologies.”

BioInspired director James (Jay) Henderson, professor of biomedical and chemical engineering in SU’s College of Engineering and Computer Science ECS, says, “the Research Traineeship Program is currently one of — if not the most — competitive funding programs at the National Science Foundation. Receipt of the award speaks to the existing strength of graduate education in BioInspired fields at Syracuse University and to the exciting new opportunities and programming that Lisa and the team designed and proposed and now stand poised to deliver.”

The EmIRGE-Bio program will include advanced core disciplinary courses in areas foundational to biotechnology and bio-inspired design; the development of two new courses utilizing team-based learning paradigms; and a longitudinal professional development program. It will also include a STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) entrepreneurship course offered by the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, an internship program and a co-curricular workshop series on project management and technology transfer.

SU expects about 115 Ph.D. students from fields that span the life and physical sciences and engineering to participate in the training, which the research team says will address a STEM workforce gap identified by local and national partners in industry and academia.