2016 Funding Workshop

VSS Workshop on Grantsmanship and Funding Agencies

No registration required. First come, first served, until full.

Saturday, May 14, 2016, 1:00 – 2:00 pm, Snowy Egret

Discussants: Michael Steinmetz, Todd Horowitz and Aude Oliva

You have a great research idea, but you need money to make it happen. You need to write a grant. But where can you apply to get money for vision research? What do you need to know before you write a grant? How does the granting process work? Writing grants to support your research is as critical to a scientific career as data analysis and scientific writing. In this session, Mike Steinmetz (National Eye Institute) and Todd Horowitz (National Cancer Institute) will give you insight into the inner workings of the extramural program at the National Institutes of Health. Additionally, Aude Oliva will present information on funding opportunities for vision science at the National Science Foundation, and on collaborative programs between NSF and NIH.

Michael Steinmetz

Michael is the Acting Director, Division of Extramural Research at the National Eye Institute (NEI). Dr. Steinmetz was a faculty member in the Department of Neuroscience and the Zanvyl Krieger Mind-Brain Institute at Johns Hopkins University for twenty years. His research program studied the neurophysiological mechanisms of selective attention and spatial perception by combining behavioral studies with single-unit electrophysiology in awake monkeys and fMRI experiments in humans. Dr. Steinmetz has extensive experience at NIH, both as a Scientific Review Administrator and as a program officer. He also represents the NEI on many inter-agency and trans-NIH committees, including the NIH Blueprint; the NIH/NSF Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience (CRCNS) program; the BRAIN project; and the DOD vision research group. Dr. Steinmetz also serves as the NEI spokesperson for numerous topics in visual neuroscience.

Todd Horowitz

Todd is Program Director in the Basic Biobehavioral and Psychological Sciences Branch at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). He came to this position after spending 12 years as Principal Investigator at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, where he studied visual search and multiple object tracking. At NCI, he is responsible for promoting basic research in attention, perception, and cognition, as well as serving on the trans-NIH Sleep Research coordinating committee.

Aude Oliva

Aude is a Principal Research Scientist in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence laboratory (CSAIL), MIT, leading the Computational Perception and Cognition group in multi-disciplinary research ventures. She has been appointed as an Expert at the National Science Foundation for 2016, in the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, Information and Intelligent Systems (CISE/IIS). At NSF, she participates to the CRCNS (Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience) program, in partnership with NIH and international research funding agencies. She is also involved with the Integrative Strategies for Understanding Neural and Cognitive Systems (NCS) program, a novel BRAIN-related multi-disciplinary solicitation across four NSF directorates (Computer & Information Science & Engineering, Education & Human Resources, Engineering and Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences).