The Wu Tsai Institute is launching a new graduate certificate to prepare the next generation of researchers through interdisciplinary coursework, hands-on activities, and professional development.
Perhaps no element of human life inspires as many questions, or holds as much mystery, as the brain.
This vital organ is the control center of the human body, helping us with basic functions like breathing and movement. But it’s also the source of everything that makes us human: our actions, emotions, memories, and thoughts. All of that packed into an organ that typically never exceeds three pounds in size.
“Understanding both how cognition came about in the first place, and understanding how this organ the size of your fist sitting in your head can write Shakespearean sonnets — those are among of the deepest questions that human beings face,” said Samuel McDougle, assistant professor of psychology in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and director of the Action, Computation, and Thinking lab.
Human cognition has long been studied in many fields. Indeed, here at Yale faculty from 30 different departments are part of the Wu Tsai Institute (WTI), the university’s home for the study of cognition. But to fully understand the mind’s mysteries, these perspectives need to come together.
That’s the approach students will learn through a new graduate certificate offered by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) in partnership with WTI. Launching this academic year, the Graduate Certificate in Brains, Minds, and Machines will prepare the next generation of human cognition researchers through interdisciplinary training across biological, psychological, and computational sciences. The new certificate includes all three to equip students with the mindset and skillset to investigate human cognition in all its complexity.
“To make progress in understanding the brain and cognition, you need to have knowledge and some skill in a range of disciplines,” said McDougle, who will direct the new certificate. “In that sense, we’re training future scientists — neuroscientists and psychologists and linguists and physicists who are interested in understanding the mind and brain — to have a bigger intellectual toolkit.”
The new certificate joins 16 existing academic program certificates offered by the graduate school, providing complementary training that broadens a student’s Ph.D. work.
First-year Ph.D. students from any GSAS department are eligible to apply for the “Brains, Minds, and Machines” certificate, although the student’s dissertation advisor and an additional member of their thesis committee should be a faculty member of the institute.
“This new certificate offers innovative training, which will help our students investigate and understand cognition through multi-disciplinary approaches,” said GSAS Dean Lynn Cooley. “Leveraging Yale’s strengths in biology, psychology, and computation and the Wu Tsai Institute’s convening power, it’s an exciting opportunity for students to broaden their horizons and develop new ideas for their research.”
The three-year certificate will supplement the doctoral training students receive in their home Ph.D. program through interdisciplinary coursework, professional development, and hands-on activities.
Inside the classroom, certificate students will complete three courses: a core course in “Brains, Minds, and Machines” taught by a cross-disciplinary roster of faculty; a methods course selected from an approved list; and an elective course selected from an approved list.
Outside the classroom, students will participate in professional development activities as well as hands-on learning experiences. As members of the WTI community, they’ll regularly attend events, including the institute’s Inspiring Speaker Series, a science communication series, workshops, and an annual “Brains, Minds, and Machines” poster session.
“Making this interactive and more of an interdisciplinary community of students is important,” McDougle said. “The problems of understanding the brain and cognition don’t respect disciplinary boundaries, right? Why should we? The goal of the certificate is getting all these students together from neuroscience, psychology, physics, computer science, data science, engineering, and linguistics, and just having them all talking.”
For additional interdisciplinary training, students will complete at least two semesters of pre-approved “experiential” learning experiences. That could include attending a weekly lab meeting in another field, joining a project from an industry partner or company, contributing to an open science team by curating data and reviewing code, organizing a workshop or bootcamp at WTI, spearheading community outreach programs and events, or even creating a podcast.
“We’re going to let students choose from a big menu of what we consider these participatory or experiential learning activities,” McDougle said.
The full details of the certificate will be released this fall with applications opening in the spring semester. The inaugural cohort will begin certificate-related activities in their second year in fall 2026.
Learn more about the new Brains, Minds, and Machines certificate at an open house on Wednesday, October 22, at the Wu Tsai Institute (100 College Street).
From the Wu Tsai Institute Website, “The student’s dissertation advisor and an additional member of their thesis committee should be Wu Tsai Faculty Members.” Currently the physics department has five faculty members who are members of the Wu Tsai Institute: Damon Clark, associate professor of molecular, cellular and Developmental biology; Thierry Emonet, Lewis B. Cullman Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology; Christopher Lynn, assistant professor of physics; Daisuke Nagai, professor of physics; and Corey O’Hern, professor of mechanical engineering.
This story has been adapted from the Yale News story of September 15, 2025, by Meg Dalton. See below for a link to the original story and other related sites.