About

The Penn State Center for Neural Engineering (CNE) facilitates collaborative research at the boundary of neuroscience, engineering, and the physical sciences. The center is positioned at this boundary with faculty experts in such varied disciplines as materials and devices, theory and computation, brain physiology, and brain health.

Faculty and students affiliated with the CNE come from departments across multiple colleges and graduate programs at Penn State to facilitate collaborative research. The CNE was founded to enable partnerships among faculty who value and leverage such interactions, and to bridge neuroscience and brain health research efforts across Penn State.

The center has nearly 11,000 square feet of shared configurable wet lab space, state-of-the-art optical and CT imaging, advanced computational microscopy, facilities for electrical equipment and device development, construction and testing, a light machine shop, animal behavior facilities, brain-machine interface low-field MRI laboratory, office space for faculty and graduate students, and access to outstanding animal and office facilities in the building.

The current CNE faculty have primary appointments in four colleges — the College of Engineering, the Eberly College of Science, the College of Medicine, and the College of Liberal Arts, with many co-hired across colleges, and many co-funded through either or both the Huck Institutes for the Life Sciences and the Materials Research Institute.

History

The Center for Neural Engineering (CNE) was chartered in 2007 by the Penn State Office of the Senior Vice President for Research as a multi-campus, multidisciplinary center. It was initiated by the Penn State Colleges of Engineering and Medicine through the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics and the Department of Neurosurgery, with support from the Materials Research Institute (MRI) and the Huck Institutes for the Life Sciences (Huck).

CNE faculty helped custom-design the West Wing third-floor space in the Millennium Science Complex during planning and construction, and officially moved in in 2011. It now hosts the work of resident and non-resident faculty members and their trainees from Penn State University Park and the College of Medicine.