October 2021 - Comp-neuro - lists.cnsorg.org

Faculty Position in Mathematical Biology at the University of Pittsburgh

by Chengcheng Huang

*The Department of Mathematics at the University of Pittsburgh* invites applications for *a tenure-track faculty position at the Assistant Professor level in the area of Mathematical Biology (including computational neuroscience)* to begin in the fall term of 2022, pending budgetary approval. We seek outstanding candidates with expertise in developing and applying mathematical methods to address biological questions, who will complement and enhance our existing strength in this area. We are dedicated to the mutual success of our faculty and students in our research and education enterprise. The University of Pittsburgh is an active center for interdisciplinary research in the life sciences, offering exciting opportunities for collaborations across departments as well as with our highly ranked medical school and nearby Carnegie Mellon University. The University is currently ranked third in the nation in total NIH funding. Successful candidates will have a Ph.D. in Mathematics or another quantitative field and should demonstrate substantial research accomplishment and dedication to teaching. Review of applications will begin on *November 15, 2021*, and will continue until the position is filled. Applicants can apply online at: *https://www.join.pitt.edu/* <https://www.join.pitt.edu/> (under Faculty Positions, Keyword search for Mathematical Biology or Mathematics). Candidates should submit (a) a cover letter, (b) a CV, (c) a statement of research accomplishments and future plans, (d) a brief description of teaching experience and interests, and (e) a brief description of how your research, teaching or service demonstrates a commitment to diversity and inclusion. Applicants should also have (f) at least three letters of reference emailed to math(a)pitt.edu by November 15, 2021. Any questions about the application process can be directed to Dana Freund at daf125(a)pitt.edu. The Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences is committed to building and fostering a culturally diverse environment, so the ability to work effectively with a wide range of individuals and constituencies in support of a diverse community is essential. The University of Pittsburgh is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer and values equality of opportunity, human dignity, and diversity. EOE, including disability/vets.

Oct. 3, 2021

COSYNE 2022: Call for workshop proposals

by Tomas Hromadka

==================================================== Computational and Systems Neuroscience 2022 (Cosyne) MAIN MEETING 17 - 20 March 2022 Lisbon, Portugal WORKSHOPS 21 - 22 March 2022 Cascais, Portugal www.cosyne.org ==================================================== ---------------------------------------------------- MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT ---------------------------------------------------- The annual Cosyne meeting provides an inclusive forum for the exchange of empirical and theoretical approaches to problems in systems neuroscience, in order to understand how neural systems function. The MAIN MEETING is single-track. A set of invited talks is selected by the Executive Committee, and additional talks and posters are selected by the Program Committee, based on submitted abstracts. The WORKSHOPS feature in-depth discussion of current topics of interest, in a small group setting. All abstract submissions will be reviewed double blind. The deadline for Abstract submission will be 20 November 2021. Cosyne topics include but are not limited to: neural basis of behavior, sensory and motor systems, circuitry, learning, neural coding, natural scene statistics, dendritic computation, neural basis of persistent activity, nonlinear receptive field mapping, representations of time and sequence, reward systems, decision-making, synaptic plasticity, map formation and plasticity, population coding, attention, neuromodulation, and computation with spiking networks. We would like to foster increased participation from experimental groups as well as computational ones. Please circulate widely and encourage your students and postdocs to apply. IMPORTANT DATES Abstract submission opens: 15 October 2021 Workshop pre-proposal deadline: 15 October 2021 Travel grant submission opens: 01 November 2021 Workshop proposal deadline: 12 November 2021 Abstract submission deadline: 20 November 2021 When preparing an abstract, authors should be aware that not all abstracts can be accepted for the meeting. Abstracts will be selected based on the clarity with which they convey the substance, significance, and originality of the work to be presented. ORGANIZING COMMITTEE General Chairs: Anne-Marie Oswald (U Pittsburgh) and Srdjan Ostojic (Ecole Normale Superieure Paris) Program Chairs: Laura Busse (LMU Munich) and Tim Vogels (IST Austria) Workshop Chairs: Anna Schapiro (U Penn) and Blake Richards (McGill) Tutorial Chair: Kanaka Rajan (Mount Sinai) DEIA Committee: Bianca Jones Martin (Columbia), Gabrielle Gutierrez (Columbia), and Stefano Recanatesi (U Washington) Undergraduate Travel Chairs: Angela Langdon (Princeton) and Bob Wilson (U Arizona) Fundraising Chair: Michael Long (NYU) Social Media Chair: Grace Lindsay (Columbia) Poster Design: Maja Bialon PROGRAM COMMITTEE Laura Busse (U Munich) Tim Vogels (IST Austria) Athena Akrami (UCL) Omri Barak (Technion) Brice Bathellier (Paris) Bing Brunton (U Washington) Yoram Burak (Hebrew University) SueYeon Chung (Columbia) Christine Constantinople (NYU) Victor de Lafuente (UNAM Mexico) Jan Drugowitsch (Harvard) Alexander Ecker (Göttingen) Tatiana Engel (Cold Spring Harbor) Annegret Falkner (Princeton) Kevin Franks (Duke) Jens Kremkow (Berlin) Andrew Leifer (Princeton) Sukbin Lim (Shanghai) Scott Linderman (Stanford) Emilie Mace (MPI Neurobiology) Mackenzie Mathis (EPFL Lausanne) Ida Momennejad (Microsoft) Jill O'Reilly (Oxford) Il Memming Park (Stony Brook) Adrien Peyrache (McGill Montréal) Yiota Porazi (FORCE) Nathalie Rochefort (Edinburgh) Christina Savin (NYU) Daniela Vallentin (MPI Ornithology) Brad Wyble (Penn State) EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Stephanie Palmer (U Chicago) Zachary Mainen (Champalimaud) Alexandre Pouget (U Geneva) Anthony Zador (CSHL) CONTACT meeting [at] cosyne.org ----------------------------------------------------- CALL FOR WORKSHOP PROPOSALS ----------------------------------------------------- A series of workshops will be held after the main Cosyne meeting. The goal is to provide an informal forum for the discussion of important research questions and challenges. Controversial issues, open problems, comparisons of competing approaches, and alternative viewpoints are encouraged. The overarching goal of all workshops should be the integration of empirical and theoretical approaches, in an environment that fosters collegial discussion and debate. - There will be 6-10 workshops/day, running in parallel. - Each workshop is expected to draw between 20 and 100 people. - The workshops will be split into morning (9.30am-12.30pm) and afternoon (3.30pm-6.30pm) sessions. - Workshops will be held at the Hotel Cascais Miragem. - Workshop speakers do *not* receive free registration, travel expenses, or accommodation for either the main meeting or the workshop sessions. Organizers should let invited speakers know that they are expected to pay for workshop registration fees Workshop organizer responsibilities include coordinating workshop participation and content, scheduling all speakers, submitting a final schedule for the workshop program, and moderating the discussion. Organizers can, but need not, be speakers. One complimentary (free) organizer registration is provided per workshop. For workshops with two organizers, the free registration can be given to one of the organizers or split evenly between them. Any required multimedia resources beyond a projector, screen, and microphones will be the responsibility of the workshop organizers to coordinate with Cosyne and Hotel staff. EVALUATION CRITERIA As stated above, the goal of Cosyne workshops is to provide an interactive, informal forum for discussions. Relevant topics include, but are not limited to: sensory processing; motor planning and control; functional neural circuits; motivation, reward and decision making; learning and memory; adaptation and plasticity; neural coding; neural circuitry and network models; and methods in computational or systems neuroscience. Workshop proposals will be evaluated by the Cosyne Workshop Chairs, and a subset of the proposals will be selected. The proposals will be evaluated according to the following six metrics (which will be weighted equally): 1. Relevance to the Cosyne community 2. Integration of experimental and theoretical issues 3. Current interest in the topic in the scientific community 4. Potential for new research directions and interactions to emerge 5. Distinctive scope/approach compared to other workshops (including previous years’) 6. Diversity and equity in the proposed speakers PRE-PROPOSALS - Deadline 15 October 2021 In an effort to coordinate submissions, workshop organizers are *strongly encouraged* to submit a pre-proposal by *15 October 2021* Submission instructions for workshop (pre)-proposals are available at Cosyne.org -> Workshops. Pre-proposals may be shared among submitters to reduce topical overlap or facilitate merging of workshops. Pre-proposals are not mandatory, but workshops with a pre-proposal will have priority. In order to foster discussion within Workshops and reduce overlap between workshops, organizers should inform invited speakers that a speaker can take part in no more than two Workshops. The pre-proposals should include: - Name(s) and email address(es) of the organizers (no more than 2 organizers per session, please). A primary contact should be designated. - A title. - A brief description of 1) what the workshop will address and accomplish, 2) why the topic is of interest, 3) who is the targeted group of participants. - Names of potential invitees, with indication of confirmed speakers. Preference will be given to workshops with confirmed speakers. - Proposed workshop length (1 or 2 days). Most workshops will be limited to a single day. If you think your workshop needs two days, please explain why. - A brief resume of the workshop organizer(s) along with a short list of workshop-relevant publications (about half a page total). Experience has shown that the best discussions during a workshop are those that arise spontaneously. A good way to foster these is to have short talks and long question periods (e.g. 30+15 minutes), and have plenty of breaks. We recommend keeping the number of talks small (i.e., fewer than 10 talks per day). FULL PROPOSALS - Deadline 12 November 2021 The full proposals should include the list of confirmed speakers in addition to all of the components required for a pre-proposal. WORKSHOP COSTS Detailed registration costs, etc, will be available at www.cosyne.org. Please note: Cosyne does *not* provide travel funding for workshop speakers. Organizers should let invited speakers know that they are expected to pay for workshop registration fees. Participants are encouraged to register early, in order to qualify for discounted registration rates. One complimentary (free) organizer registration is provided per workshop. For workshops with two organizers, the free registration can be given to one of the organizers or split evenly between them. COSYNE 2022 WORKSHOP CHAIRS Anna Schapiro (U Penn) and Blake Richards (McGill) COSYNE WORKSHOPS CONTACT workshops [at] cosyne.org COSYNE MAILING LISTS Please consider adding yourself to Cosyne mailing lists (groups) to receive email updates with various Cosyne-related information and join in helpful discussions. See Cosyne.org -> Mailing lists for details.

Oct. 1, 2021

Announcing the 3rd Brain-Computer Interface Un-Conference (3rd BCI-UC)

by Philipp Raggam

Dear Colleagues, We cordially invite you to the *3rd Brain-Computer Interface Un-Conference* (BCI-UC) on*January 27th, 2022, from 03:00 pm to 09:00 pm (CET)* [1]! The BCI-UC is an online un-conference that provides rapid dissemination of novel research results in the BCI community. Participants can *submit abstracts* to apply for *20 minutes presentation* slots. Abstracts are not reviewed by a program committee. Rather, all registered participants can vote on which of the submitted abstracts they would like to see presented at the un-conference. Because the BCI-UC does not publish conference proceedings, submitted abstracts can report novel as well as already published work. *Registration and attendance are free of charge*. Presentations of the 1st and 2nd BCI-UC can be re-watched at [2] and [3]. The 3rd BCI-UC will feature *keynotes* by *Cynthia Chestek* (University of Michigan) [4] and *Thorsten Zander* (TU Brandenburg) [5]. *Registration and abstract submission open on November 1st, 2021* [1]. Abstract submissions are text-only. The length and format of the submissions are up to the authors - use whatever format you consider best for attracting up-votes!*Submission closes on December 3rd, 2021 at 11:59 pm*. *Voting on submitted abstracts begins on December 6th, 2021, and closes on December 12th, 2021 at 11:59 pm*. We will invite the authors of the top-voted abstracts to present at the un-conference. *All presentations will be streamed via Crowdcast* [6] and can be accessed free of charge. Join us in supporting this novel community-driven dissemination of research results! The BCI-UC committee: Moritz Grosse-Wentrup Anja Meunier Philipp Raggam Jiachen Xu Links: [1] https://bciunconference.univie.ac.at/3rd-bci-uc/ [2] https://bciunconference.univie.ac.at/past-events/1st-bci-uc/ [3] https://bciunconference.univie.ac.at/past-events/2nd-bci-uc/ [4] https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=36sxAZEAAAAJ&hl=de [5] https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=0E49HxYAAAAJ [6] https://www.crowdcast.io/ -- DI Philipp Raggam, BSc Research Group Neuroinformatics Faculty of Computer Science University of Vienna Hörlgasse 6, A-1090 Wien, Austria

Oct. 1, 2021