Cognitive science is an exciting and rapidly evolving field that deals with complex cognition, intelligent systems, and the emergent behavior of large-scale computational systems.

psychology computer science linguistics philosophy neuroscience

The goals of the program include gaining a better understanding of the human mind, of teaching and learning; of mental abilities and of the development of intelligent machines that either simulate or augment the capabilities of human minds in illuminating ways.

Students will be given training in the nature of knowledge and intelligence, in the neural mechanisms underlying complex capacities, and in the computational techniques under development to model these capacities, in order to gain the conceptual framework and technical skills necessary for careers in research, teaching, business, and government.

Perspectives

Read an article written from the perspective of a Cognitive Science faculty member.

Read letters written by Cognitive Science program alumni.

Careers Happenings of Recent Graduates

Nicole Beckage
Nicole is in the Ph.D. program in Cognitive Science at UC-Irvine working with Mark Steyvers. Her senior year research published in PLoS One is already attracting a lot of attention.

Ravi Bhatt, Jim Brink, Stephen Hockema, Jun Luo
Aji

Tarun Gangwani
The cognitive science program at IU lets one discover their academic and professional passions. I got involved with projects that allowed me to gain self-discipline and accountability for my work -- both of which are invaluable to any career path that one would choose. The flexibility of the program made it easy to pick a path that was right for me -- while there is some baseline structure, there are many opportunities to explore the field by joining projects, taking classes in other fields, and working with faculty and peers. While I can say that I hold an undergraduate degree, the experiences I got involved with during my time with the program are what really shaped me as a person. My website: http://www.tarun.info/ .

Kelly Gordon
Kelly graduated in 2010 and spent the last year in an accelerated 1 year MA degree for Art History in London. She recently submitted her MA dissertation on artists resale rights and has also started her first year of law school at The John Marshall University in Chicago where she is pursuing Intellectual Property Law (specifically Art Law).

Jaimie Murdock
Since graduating in December 2010, I've accepted a full-time position as a Visiting Research Associate with the Cognitive Science Program, continuing work with Colin Allen on the Indiana Philosophy Ontology (InPhO) Project. I'm very excited about the upcoming year working on new methods for knowledge representation and machine learning. I'll also be working on a new bibliography management system for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), based on a tool developed at the Cognitive Science Program.

Brian Slattery
After I graduated in 2010, I started working on a Ph.D. in learning sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, working with Tom Moher and Leilah Lyons. My research has mainly involved technological supports for learning, especially as they are used in informal learning institutions such as hand's-on science museums, zoos, aquariums, etc. My current main project is helping design and evaluate an embodied learning environment to teach people about the effects of climate change on polar regions, being designed for the Brookfield Zoo (and other zoos nationwide) as part of the NSF-funded Climate Literacy Zoo Education Network (CLiZEN).