The exciting new multidisciplinary field called Educational Neuroscience, and the new PhD program in Educational Neuroscience (PEN) at Gallaudet University, are bound by two driving overarching objectives:
1. to marry leading scientific discoveries about how children learn knowledge that is at the heart of early schooling (e.g., language, reading, number, science, social-emotional) with core challenges in contemporary education, and to do so in principled ways through "two-way" communication and mutual growth between science and society;
2. to conduct state-of-the-art behavioral and neuroimaging research that renders new knowledge about learning that is useable and meaningfully translatable for the benefit of society (spanning parents, teachers, clinicians, medical practitioners, and beyond). Here, Gallaudet's unique strength, and unique contribution, is to pioneer advances in the education of young deaf children.
The new PhD Program in Educational Neuroscience also seeks to propel forward Gallaudet University's goals to provide its students with the most cutting-edge knowledge, powerful critical analysis and reasoning skills, and utterly advanced knowledge of, and expertise in, research and its principled application (here, neuroimaging and behavioral research), which are vital to education and society.