EFTA01191637.pdf

'It UC MERCI UC Music Experience Research Community Initiative BERKELEY • DAVIS • IRVINE • LOS ANGELES • RIVERSIDE •SAN DIEGO •SAN FRANCISCO •SANTA BARBARA • SANTA CRUZ • MERCED Dear Mr. Neal Stulberg, We are writing to formally invite you to give a talk at the UC MERCI Symposium at Schoenberg Hall, UCLA, Oct. 1-3, funded by a UC President's Multicampus Research Projects and Initiatives Award. These Awards are designed to spur connected research within and across UC campuses in areas of interest to the University and Californians. Our proposal to focus on building UC scientific research in music was awarded a two-year Planning Grant and designated one of only five UC-wide Research Catalyst Award winners. The main objective of the UC MERCI Award is to develop scientific research in music across the UC system. Our goal for this inaugural workshop is to survey a broad swath of ongoing music research at all the UC campuses and schools within each campus, ranging from studies examining the effects of music participation on learning and health to brain imaging studies to studies on music development and skill acquisition. We hope to find areas of common interest, opportunity, and enthusiasm and to foster and propose research partnerships within UC and with the music industry and others. With that goal in mind, the Symposium schedule will feature: Evening of Thursday, Oct. 1: The conference opens with a Public Event that includes registration, a review of the current two-year MERCI Planning Grant objectives, an overview of the forthcoming workshops on Friday and Saturday, a series of Keynote lectures, and a Keynote lecture and performance by Professor Neal Stulberg, Chair of the UCLA Music Department and Director of Orchestral Studies. Afterwards, there will be a Student Reception on campus that will include live music by local pop-rock bands. Friday, Oct. 2: Presentations by UC researchers in four areas: Music, Health & Medicine; Music, Mind & Brain; Music, Development & Education; and Music, Technology & Informatics -- each consisting of invited brief talks followed by general discussion. A poster session will be held in the evening at the UCLA Faculty Center. Saturday, Oct. 3: Workshops in each of the above four themes will focus on overlapping research interests across UC campuses, formulate working hypotheses, and identify investigators, study populations, and methods for pilot studies and research projects in advance of the 2017 UC MERCI Program Award application and other grant applications. Participants from each workshop will then report on their discussions to close the Symposium at 3 pm. EFTA01191637 We have tentatively scheduled you to propose your research ideas and perspective on Friday, Oct. 2. We ask that you read the following charge carefully before accepting this talk invitation. • Talks at the MERCI workshop are not intended to be traditional, results-heavy research reports. We are looking for brief (12 minutes) talks that first identify, briefly, your (any) area of current research. • Please describe your work at an overview level geared toward researchers outside your field and subfield. • Next, we ask you to give your perspective on a promising research direction that may allow better understanding, modeling, and/or use of some aspect of music experience and communication -- a direction you believe to be ripe for solo or, particularly, for collaborative exploration. • We ask that at least half your talk be devoted to this topic. Because of the time limit, Powerpoint users should present a maximum of 10 slides, including title slide. Will UC MERCI pay your expenses? Yes, we will provide rooms at the UCLA Guest House and meals at the UCLA Faculty Club, and will reimburse your necessary travel expenses. We also have funds available for graduate and undergraduate students and post-doctoral fellows and will provide details in a future correspondence. If you plan to arrive by air at LAX, please use the convenient ($10) LAX shuttle to UCLA: https://main.transportation.ucla.edu/getting-to-ucla/travel-options/flyaway If you accept this invitation to talk, please register here before September Is' Note: We will soon be accepting graduate and undergraduate student and postdoctoral scholar applications for limited travel and material support of multi-campus music research projects as a demonstration of the potential for future multi-campus research to be fueled by such exchanges. During this 2015-16 phase, we do not have funding for participant salary support, nor support for projects by researchers on only one campus. Information will be emailed and be available at http://merci.ucsd.edu. Thank you again for your interest in taking part in the first stage of this exciting UC MERCI initiative supported by the Office of the UC President. We look forward to meeting you and hearing more about your research and research interests -- past, present, and future -- relevant to better understanding of musical experience and communication. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. Cordially, EFTA01191638 Scott Makeig, Director, UCSD Ramesh Balasubramaniam, UC Merced Sarah Creel, UCSD John Iversen, UCSD Petr Janata, UC Davis Julene Johnson, UCSF Mark Tramo, UCLA (Symposium Organizer) EFTA01191639