Dear AAPA:

We are writing to share the news about an exciting funded summer opportunity for graduate students, early-career academics, industry researchers, and artists of all types: the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI).

The basic idea behind DISI is simple. We gather promising Fellows (graduate students, postdocs, and early faculty) and Storytellers (artists, writers, filmmakers, and more) interested in the origins, nature, and future of intelligences for several weeks of serious interdisciplinary exploration.

Our Fellows and Storytellers fall roughly into three sub-themes: Recognizing intelligences (i.e., the study of biological but non-human minds), Shaping human intelligences (i.e., how development, culture, philosophical ideas, technology, etc., shape human capacities), and Programming intelligences (i.e., artificial intelligence and its social/philosophical implications).

In both the Fellow and Storyteller tracks, we’re looking for open-minded participants who want to take intellectual risks and break down disciplinary barriers in the spirit of dialogue and discovery. We hope that this creative community will work together to develop new ways of engaging with big questions about the mind, cognition, and intelligence. You can read more about DISI, and previous iterations, on our website: https://disi.org.

DISI 2021 will take place virtually, from June 27 through July 16, 2021. During this time, Fellows and Storytellers will attend lectures, social events, and salons, learning from and interacting with our world-class faculty. Fellows and Storytellers will also work together on projects of their own devising. DISI will culminate in a project showcase on July 24, 2021.

Thanks to generous support from the Templeton World Charity Foundation, all accepted Fellows and Storytellers will receive funding to support their participation in the Institute. Moreover, Fellows and Storytellers will be inducted into a DISI network of 60+ extraordinary faculty members and 120+ DISI Alums. Alums have lifetime access to a wealth of dedicated resources, which includes funding opportunities for future projects.

Application review will begin on April 12. The DISI 2021 application can be found at: https://disi.org/apply/.

We would be most grateful if you would forward this announcement to any talented folks who might be interested in this opportunity. Thank you for helping us grow our DISI community!

*Please note: If you're not the correct contact for sharing graduate opportunities, we'd be most grateful if you forwarded this message to the contact in your department that manages graduate affairs. Thank you in advance.

With all our best wishes, The DISI Team

Jacob G. Foster, Associate Professor, UCLA Department of Sociology; DISI Director Erica A. Cartmill, Associate Professor, UCLA Departments of Anthropology and Psychology; DISI Director Kensy Cooperrider; DISI Associate Director of Content and Outreach, Host of MANY MINDs podcast Hilda Loury; DISI Associate Director of Operations