Foundation Models for the Brain | An Evening Symposium

​Join us on March 26th for an evening symposium organized around the rapidly developing field of foundation models for the brain.

​This research area and its application spaces are moving fast, but continue to develop under very practical constraints across hardware, data, and real-world systems: what neural data is realistically available, what today's sensing can and can't capture, where the true bottlenecks are, and where the next improvements need to come from.

​The evening brings together a multidisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners approaching the problem from distinct angles, spanning neural sensing, recording, and modeling through to real-world deployment, for two moderated panels and a closing reception with attendee-led discussion tables.

​About the discussion tables At registration, you'll have the option to propose a topic for the closing discussion tables. Proposals can be as focused or exploratory as you like: a specific open problem, a methodological tension, or a question the field isn't discussing enough. We'll organize tables around what comes up and let accepted proposers know in advance so they can prepare.

​Program

​Program

​5:00 — Welcome and drinks

​5:20 — Opening remarks Margot Hanley (NeuroNYC) · Peter Zhegin (e184)

​5:30 — Panel 1: Original approaches and where progress is bottlenecked Moderated by Patrick Mineault (Amaranth Foundation). Vinay Jayaram (Alljoined) · Andreas Tolias (Stanford) · John Crary (Mount Sinai) · Liam Paninski (Columbia) · Cole Hurwitz (IBM) · Marcelo Mattar (NYU) · David Moses (UCSF)

​6:05 — Break

​6:20 — Panel 2: From research to real-world systems Moderated by Sean Escola (Protocol Labs). Dimitris Sakellariou (Piramidal) · Qingyu Zhao (Weill Cornell) · Joe Futoma (Oura) · Eric Trautmann (Meta Reality Labs)

​7:05 — Keynote: Andreas Tolias (Stanford)

​7:30 — Closing perspective: Peter Zhegin (e184)

​7:40-9 — Discussion tables and reception

​Hosted by e184 × NeuroNYC, with Brown Rudnick as venue partner. Space is limited.