Archive

2018 NSF GRFP Fellowship

Shayna Bennett

Shayna Bennett was awarded a GRFP Fellowship in applied mathematics, which she will use to develop mathematical models for predicting the spread of invasive species. Her work will explore how diffusion equations can be used to understand the influence of landscape features, such as rivers and roads, on species spreading rate and extent.

Spring 2018

The 2018 NRT-IAS Annual Conference group picture

The 2018 NRT-IAS Annual Conference was held on March 26th and 27th at Chaminade Resort & Spa in Santa Cruz, California. Sixteen students and eleven faculty members across six disciplines attended the conference. All the students did marvelous presentations. All the faculty members provided valuable feedback for the students to guide them to success. The discussions were interesting and exciting. This was a great opportunity for the students and the faculty to put everything else aside and focus on their research.
Visit our Photo Gallery to see event photos.

Fall 2017

Jordan Ackerman received GRFP Fellowship

Jordan was awarded a GRFP Fellowship in Natural Language Processing which he will use to model improvisational and written rap for both computational and pedagogical purposes. (There is no good system for learning how to rhyme improvisationally!)
Read more about Jordan's projects in education and language technology: www.wordsurge.com
* Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.

Are Animal Sounds Speech Or Music? Researchers Trying To Find Out (Sammy Caiola, Capital Public Radio. November 8, 2017)

We know lots of animals talk to one another, but how close are their howls and calls to human language? Or are those communications more like music?
Researchers at UC Merced dug into those questions in their latest paper, published this fall. They created a new method of sound comparison that they say lays important groundwork for future language study across species.
Cognitive science professors Christopher Kello and Ramesh Balasubramanium, along with graduate student Butovens Médé, scoured more than 200 animal, human and music recordings in search of patterns. Read more .....

Chris Kello (left), Butovens Médé (middle) and Ramesh Balasubramaniam (right)
have found a new way to analyze animal sounds, human speech and music.

CIS Hosting New Summer School
August 18th, 2017

CIS faculty, led by Prof. Ramesh Balasubramaniam, have secured NSF funding for the next CHASE (Center for Human Adaptive Systems and Environments) Summer School. This will be the second such summer school, organized by UC Merced faculty affiliated with CHASE. The first, held in 2014, was on the Dynamics of Language and Music. To be held in 2018, the second summer school will be on the topic of Dynamic Interaction of Embodied Human and Machine Intelligence.
Read more....