NSF research traineeship offers new approach to STEM graduate education

A multidisciplinary team of George Mason University researchers is part of a groundbreaking approach by the National Science Foundation that could change the face of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) graduate education in the future. 

Siddhartha Sikdar, a professor of bioengineering in Mason’s Volgenau School of Engineering and the director of the  Center for Adaptive Systems of Brain-Body Interactions (CASBBI), leads a team that has received an NSF Research Traineeship grant of nearly $3 million.

More than 100 PhD students from electrical and bioengineering, data science, computer science, neuroscience and the social sciences, including some with disabilities, will be trained to use state-of-the-art data analytic methods and wearable computing technologies based on novel transdisciplinary competencies, applications and practice curriculum.

Sikdar poses in a lab holding a smart prosthetic hand.
Siddhartha Sikdar, Associate Professor / ECE Associate Professor, Bioengineering. Photo by: Ron Aira / George Mason University