CMU Neuroscience Institute

Brown Awards Shinn-Cunningham BEAM Award - Mellon College of Science - Carnegie Mellon University Brown University's School of Engineering recognized Barbara Shinn-Cunningham as its 2025 Brown Engineering Alumni Medal winner.

🎉 Congratulations to Glen de Vries Dean of MCS, Barbara Shinn-Cunningham on receiving the 2025 Brown Engineering Alumni Medal (BEAM)!🏅The award annually honors engineering graduates of Brown University who have demonstrated exceptional achievement in their careers. #womeninstem @barbsc.bsky.social

Awesome work completed by @reecedkeller.bsky.social, graduate student in the Program of Neural Computation and president of the Neuroscience Institute Student Organization! #NeuroAI

Physics Powers Li's Neuroscience Discoveries - Neuroscience Institute - Carnegie Mellon University Physics underpins how the universe works. For recent Carnegie Mellon University graduate and future physician-scientist Yunshu Li, it's a gateway to breakthroughs in medicine and neuroscience.

Physics 🤝 Neuroscience

Yunshu Li, a recent CMU physics grad, earned the Fugassi & Monteverde Award for her interdisciplinary approach to neuroscience research, studying how the brain processes & isolates specific sounds in noisy settings 🔊🧠 @barbsc.bsky.social

Read more about her CMU experience ⬇️

Setting the SCENE for Neuroscience Breakthroughs - Neuroscience Institute - Carnegie Mellon University CMU and Pitt researchers selected for $80M Simons Collaboration on Ecological Neuroscience (SCENE), a 10-year initiative exploring how the brain encodes perception into action.

CMU and Pitt researchers Xaq Pitkow and Aaron Batista join the $80 million Simons Collaboration on Ecological Neuroscience (SCENE), a 10-year initiative bridging neuroscience and machine learning to study perception and action in natural environments. Read more about their research focus and goals ⬇️

CMU Neuroscientist Has Big Plans for Guggenheim Fellowship - Neuroscience Institute - Carnegie Mellon University Timothy Verstynen has always been fascinated by how organisms explore their environments — from the human quest to map the surfaces of distant planets to the itty-bitty journeys of single-celled bacte...

Tim Verstynen, Interim Director of the NI, has been awarded the 2025 Guggenheim Fellowship! 👏

Awarded annually to "trailblazing artists and scholars," Tim will be inducted into the 100th class of Guggenheim Fellows on June 2.

Read more about his upcoming "exploration of exploration."
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Congratulations to our Ph.D. graduates! 🎓🎉

On May 9th, the Neuroscience Institute proudly celebrated five students completing the Program in Neural Computation and the PNC/Machine Learning Joint Program.

Best wishes for your continued success - we look forward to seeing all that you achieve!

Advancing Neuroscience While Removing Racial Bias - Neuroscience Institute - Carnegie Mellon University In 2017, a family member volunteered to be part of Jasmine Kwasa’s (ENG 2021) auditory neuroscience experiments using EEGs. Jasmine pointed out that “Black hair and EEGs don’t get along,” and was stru...

Jasmine Kwasa, current post-doc fellow at the Neuroscience Institute, was recently recognized as one of this years "Tartans on the Rise", which celebrates select CMU alumni for their leadership, innovation, and career achievements 🎉 👏

Read more about how she develops accessible, unbiased EEG tech ⬇️

Research Rising Stars: SURF Students Take on Complex Biomedical Challenges - Neuroscience Institute - Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program provides funding for undergraduates to work full time on research projects during the summer. Many students continu...

"Research is about a lot of failures...(but) progress comes from knowing why things failed and then building on it," says CMU undergrad Anyssa Oden, who shares her research journey through the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program in this featured article! ⬇️ #CMU #undergradresearch

Keen Mind - Neuroscience Institute - Carnegie Mellon University Barbara Shinn-Cunningham Installed as Glen De Vries Dean of the Mellon College of Science

The Queen is officially in! Last week, Barbara Shinn-Cunningham, founding director of the Neuroscience Institute, was installed as Glen De Vries Dean of the Mellon College of Science. We are all so excited to see the positive impacts her leadership and direction will bring! Congratulations Barb!!🎉

How does the brain work?

Scientists are closer to the answer with the largest wiring diagram and functional map of a mammalian brain to date. 🧵

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Chase elected to AIMBE College of Fellows - Neuroscience Institute - Carnegie Mellon University The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) has announced that Steven Chase, professor of biomedical engineering and the Neuroscience Institute, has been inducted into its Co...

Congratulations to Steve Chase, professor in BME and the Neuroscience Institute, for his recent induction into the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) College of Fellows!! 🎉 Learn more about this distinguished achievement and Chase's outstanding work below! #CMU

Neuroscience Institute Celebration 2025! 🎉 It’s always a fun time when students, faculty, and administrators at the NI get together! Huge thanks to Velum Fermentation for providing such a fun and active place for us, and to Cold Friends Kitchen for their hard work and amazing food!

"What makes an artificial system a good model of intelligence?" Researchers at CMU are addressing this question with a focus on artificial brain models.

Read more about how the proposed "NeuroAI Turing Test" offers a standard benchmark to develop "truly brain-like AI"! arxiv.org/abs/2502.16238

Carl Olson, Professor of the Neuroscience Institute at CMU, died Nov. 23, 2024. Carl was a renowned neuroscientist who provided insights into fundamental issues in the neural basis of cognition. Read more about Carl's life and legacy in his published obituary. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Teaching computational neuroscience on the African continent - Neuroscience Institute - Carnegie Mellon University CMU-Africa, CMU-Pittsburgh, and the non-profit TReND in Africa held a summer school focused on computational neuroscience and machine learning. What began as an idea from two postdocs turned into a hi...

In 2024, CMU-Africa, CMU-Pittsburgh, and the non-profit TReND in Africa held the CaMinA summer program in Kigali, Rwanda. There, students received both theoretical and hands-on training in basic concepts of computational neuroscience and machine learning. Learn more in this featured article! #CMU

A New Minimally Invasive Method for Deep Brain Stimulation - Neuroscience Institute - Carnegie Mellon University Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Allegheny Health Network have developed a new method for deep brain stimulation. The technique, called “DeepFocus,” uses transcranial electrical stimula...

Researchers from CMU and Allegheny Health Network have developed a new method for deep brain stimulation. “DeepFocus” offers a steerable, minimally invasive and more accurate way to treat deep brain areas in comparison to implants or traditional scalp electrodes. Read more in this featured article!

Researchers Propose Framework to Identify Food Selectivity Origins in the Brain - Neuroscience Institute - Carnegie Mellon University Human evolution has revolved around food, from identifying and foraging for it to growing and preparing it. Carnegie Mellon University researchers have identified a region in the brain's visual cortex...

Carnegie Mellon University researchers have identified a region in the brain's visual cortex that responds to food. They've developed a theoretical framework that could explain the origins of this selectivity. Read more in this featured article or in their Trend in Neuroscience paper! #food #brain

Developmental Psychologists and Statisticians Come Together To Ensure Research Tools Measure Up - Neuroscience Institute - Carnegie Mellon University Developmental Psychologists and Statisticians Come Together To Ensure Research Tools Measure Up

Developmental psychologists and statisticians team up to investigate the accuracy and reliability of research tools used to assess how children learn. Read more about how CMU researchers statistically evaluate spatial arrangement tasks with nontraditional data in this featured article! #research

Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellows Map Language in the Brain - Neuroscience Institute - Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University’s Neuroscience Institute (NI) aims to attract diverse, world-class talent and create an unmatched collaborative community. Its Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship Program ...

The NI's Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship Program invites early career applicants to collaborate with university-wide faculty working on brain research. Read more on how the two newest fellows, Julien Dirani & Chiara Repetti-Ludlow, map language in the brain! www.cmu.edu/ni/news/dist...

Neuroscience Institute Spurs Collaboration, New Discoveries - Neuroscience Institute - Carnegie Mellon University Key discoveries in modern neuroscience rely on transdisciplinary approaches, linking biology, cognitive psychology, computer science, statistics and engineering. Tackling the toughest and most impactf...

The Neuroscience Institute at CMU brings together interdisciplinary expertise to understand & improve brain function, invent & apply novel neural technologies & tools, and educate the next generation of neuroscience leaders.
Click to learn about NI's achievements & goals:
www.cmu.edu/ni/news/neur...

Insights on Limits of Non-Invasive Deep-Brain Stimulation - Neuroscience Institute - Carnegie Mellon University Being able to noninvasively stimulate the deep brain without stimulating shallow regions is a key goal of non-invasive neurostimulation. A study published in Nature Communications Biology by Carnegie ...

A study published in Nature Communications Biology by CMU researchers provides a breakthrough in understanding neural mechanisms of a recent neurostimulation technique called temporal interference (TI) stimulation...

www.cmu.edu/ni/news/deep...

The one-way paths of neural population activity - Neuroscience Institute - Carnegie Mellon University A collaborative team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh designed a clever experiment using a brain-controlled interface to determine whether one-way activi...

The Neuroscience Institute is excited to share some impressive work published by professors Byron Yu and Aaron Batista. Their collaborative research provides empirical support for one-way activity paths in the brain, long hypothesized by neural network models.

www.cmu.edu/ni/news/neur...

Grover and Weber Awarded Research Funding to Study Female Pain - Neuroscience Institute - Carnegie Mellon University Pulkit Grover, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Doug Weber, the Akhtar and Bhutta Professor of Mechanical Engineering, won $50,000 for research from a contest by Pitt CTSI, Magee ...

Pulkit Grover, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Doug Weber, the Akhtar and Bhutta Professor of Mechanical Engineering, won $50,000 for research from a contest by Pitt CTSI, Magee Women's Research Institute, and the Magee-Womens Summit.

www.cmu.edu/ni/news/wmns...

Richard Ivry Receives Andrew Carnegie Prize in Mind and Brain Sciences - Neuroscience Institute - Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University has awarded the 11 th annual Andrew Carnegie Prize in Mind and Brain Sciences to Richard Ivry, Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Ca...

Carnegie Mellon University has awarded the 11th annual Andrew Carnegie Prize in Mind and Brain Sciences to Richard Ivry, Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley.

www.cmu.edu/ni/news/carn...

BRAIN Initiative Director Visits CMU, Pitt - Neuroscience Institute - Carnegie Mellon University John Ngai, director of the National Institutes of Health Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, visited Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pitt...

John Ngai, director of the National Institutes of Health Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, visited CMU and the University of Pittsburgh Nov. 21-22 for lab tours, research presentations and a talk with the community.

www.cmu.edu/ni/news/brai...

Zhao Joins Project To Make Whole Eye Transplants a Reality - Neuroscience Institute - Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University researchers will use Magnify Expansion Microscopy technology to precisely map optic nerve fibers as part of the six-year project, led by Stanford University and the Universi...

Carnegie Mellon University is part of a major undertaking that will bring together more than 40 scientists, doctors, and industry experts hand-picked from around the country to make vision-restoring whole eye transplants a reality.

www.cmu.edu/ni/news/whol...

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