Opening Words by the Center's Co-directors

Opening Words

Opening Words by the Center's Co-Directors:


Boicho Kokinov:		Elizabeth Bates:

Welcome to the Central and East European Center for Cognitive Science at NBU!

The Center is a unique place in Central and Eastern Europe which offers a stimulating and interdisciplinary environment for study and research in the field of human cognition. It is an international, research-oriented and student-centered flexible institution that works effectively across disciplinary boundaries to advance our fundamental understanding of human mind and to solve problems for the benefit of its surrounding communities and society at large.

Our most important treasures are human resourses, both faculty members and students. I am happy to work with highly motivated colleagues who are insightful researchers as well as enthusiastic teachers. This unique team of psychologists, neuroscientists, computer scientists, linguists, anthropologists, and philosophers would be a fortune for every cognitive science center in the world. They work really hard, cooperate on interdisciplinary research projects, and are dedicated teachers and supervisors. Their enthusiasm is shared by the students and we often hear from our visiting professors that these are the most highly motivated students that they have ever met. This lucky combination of motivated staff and students makes the success of the Center. The people at the Center have demonstrated that even when the economic conditions are difficult if we do believe in what we are doing and work hard our dreams come true!

I invite you to visit our Web site to learn about our academic programs, research endeavors and university life in general. I also invite you to visit NBU personally, to visit our annual Summer Schools, so you can learn more about the Center first-hand and get a sense of how friendly, exciting and beautiful this place really is.

I am a lucky woman. I have assisted at the birth of Cognitive Science, not once but three times. As a new faculty member in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego, I was there in the early 1980 when we put together the first interdisciplinary and inter-departmental Ph.D. Program in Cognitive Science. Just a few years later, I was a founding member of the UCSD Department of Cognitive Science, the first such department in the world. I rather thought, by then, that my academic midwifing experiences were over. But then, thanks to a host of new friends and colleagues at the New Bulgarian University, I was invited to participate in the founding of the first doctoral program in cognitive science in Eastern Europe, followed quickly by the establishment of the Central and Eastern Europe Center for Cognitive Science at NBU.

And that was a special stroke of luck. I still do not fully understand why I was invited to play this role, beyond the fact that I belong to a lot of frequent flier programs and am willing to travel. My Bulgarian colleagues paid me a great compliment in their belief that I could add something to a program that was already extraordinary along so many dimensions, without my help. Boicho Kokinov drew me into the program a little at a time. Those who know him know that he does this often with outsiders like me who -- at first -- know very little about NBU but are quickly stunned by the intelligence, passion and imagination of its faculty and students. I was frankly amazed by what I found on my first visit to Sofia, to teach in the annual NBU Cognitive Science Summer School. I met students from many parts of Eastern Europe who, with .01% of the resources that my students at home have at their disposal, had already learned about cognitive science and all its promise, and simply could not wait to learn more. Which they did with speed, and depth, and insight, in just 2-3 weeks. I repeated the teaching experience again recently, and was impressed all over again at the quality of the questions and the sheer joy of the broad-ranging and exciting discussions that we held after every class (including the ones sitting under a shady tree, drinking Bulgarian coffee).

The Central and Eastern European Center for Cognitive Science at NBU is a world-class institution, combining research and teaching at the leading edge of this new interdisciplinary field. It is a Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, a feast that has suddenly appeared where a complacent Westerner did not expect to find it. I now know the recipe for success in cognitive science: a solid education in science and the humanities, a passion for learning that transcends traditional disciplinary borders, a deep curiosity about the nature of the mind and brain -- and access to the Internet. If you have those things, you can be a cognitive scientist. The rest will follow. Come to Sofia and find out.