2024 Swartz Foundation Meeting

Swartz Foundation

About

The Swartz Foundation Meeting will be held at UW Campus, primarily at the Gates Center Zillow Commons, on August 5-6.

Schedule

August 5

Morning session is at Allen Institute, 615 Westlake Ave N. 

9 am – 9:30 am Plenary: Rui  Costa, President and CEO, Allen Institute
9:35 am – 10:00 am Lorenzo Tiberi, Harvard University

“Dissecting the Interplay of Attention Paths in a Statistical Mechanics Theory of Transformers”
10:00 am – 10:25 am Break
10:25 am – 10:50 am Asma Motiwala, Carnegie Mellon University

“Probing Movement Preparation Dynamics Using BCI-based Causal Perturbations”
10:50 am – 11:15 am Amin Nejatbakhsh, New York University and Flatiron Institute

“Noise Correlations: Feature or a Bug?”
11:15 am – 11:40 am Cooper Grossman, Caltech

“Human single neurons in prefrontal cortex support computations underlying hierarchical, model-based behavior”
12:00 – 12:20 pm Return to UW Remainder of meeting is at Zillow Commons in Gates Center on UW Campus
12:20 pm – 2:00 pm Lunch
2:00 pm – 2:25 pm Yusi Chen, University of Washington

“Reinforcement Learning Constrained State Space Modeling of Neural Decisions”
2:25 pm – 2:50 pm Alessandra Camassa, Salk Institute

“Unraveling Brain-Behavior Dynamics through Causal Inference and Generative Modeling”
2:50 pm – 3:15 pm Tahereh Toosi, Columbia University

“Generative perceptual inference in deep neural network models of object recognition induces illusory contours and shapes”
3:15 pm – 3:40 pm Break
3:40 pm – 4:05 pm Xize Xu, Yale University

“Spatial context non-uniformly modulates inter-laminar information flow in the primary visual cortex”
4:05 pm – 4:30 pm Abuzar Mahmood, Brandeis University

“Basolateral Amygdala and Gustatory Cortex interact asymmetrically during taste processing in rodents”
4:30 pm – 4:55 pm Cina Aghamohammadi, Princeton University

“I Can’t Believe It’s Not an Inhomogeneous Poisson!”
4:55 pm – 5:20 pm Connor Bybee, University of California Berkeley

“Neural circuits for efficient inference”
6:00 pm  Dinner – Ivar’s Salmon House, 401 NE Northlake Way, Swartz Fellows and Mentors

August 6

8 am – 9:00 am Director’s Meeting
9 am – 9:50 am Plenary: Eric Shea-Brown, University of Washington
9:50 am – 10:15 am John Meng, New York University

“In search of single-cell mNRA expressions correlated with neuronal rate
adaptation across different cell types”
10:15 am – 10:40 am Yugarshi Mondal, Brandeis University

“Homeostatic Modulation of Ion Channel Voltage-Sensitivity”
10:40 am – 11:00 am Break
11:00 am – 11:25 am Manuel Beiran, Columbia University

“Prediction of neural-activity in connectome-constrained recurrent networks”
11:25 am – 11:50 am Bahareh Tolooshams, Caltech

“A feedback mechanism in deep generative networks to remove degradation from visual stimuli”
11:50 – 12:15 pm Kiri Choi, Yale University

“Bifurcation enhances temporal information encoding in Drosophila olfactory receptor neurons “
12:15 pm – 12:40 pm Seyed (Yahya) Shirazi, University of California San Diego

“The necessity and facilities for brain source imaging using EEG”
12:40 pm – 1:05 pm Fereshteh Lagzi, University of Washington

“Reconciling Diverse Experimental Findings on Inhibitory Tuning in the Mouse Visual Cortex”
1:05 pm – 2:30 pm Lunch and Poster Session
2:30 pm – 2:55 pm Caitlin Lienkaemper, Boston University

“When is a non-canonical olfactory system optimal?”
2:55 pm – 3:20 pm Alexander van Meegen, Harvard University

“Coding schemes in neural networks learning classification tasks”
3:20 pm – 3:45 pm Break
3:45 pm – 5:00 pm Neuro AI Panel
5:00 – 7:00 Reception – please register

Housing

  • Attendees who have registered for housing will receive information directly on how and where to check in. Provided rooms are single dorms on UW campus with private bathrooms.

Dinner

Transportation

  • From the airport, University of Washington campus is accessible by light rail. The meeting rooms and lodging are about a 10 minute walk from the U District station.
  • A rideshare or taxi from the airport to campus will take 35 – 50 minutes and runs an average of $85.
  • The meeting will start at the Allen Institute. We will provide Lyft codes for groups to get to and from Allen.