Program Description:

Applications are invited for an intensive hands-on summer program to introduce undergraduate students to the principles and techniques of computational neuroscience. The summer program will be directed by Dr. Vijay Balasubramanian of the University of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Joshua Jacobs of Drexel University, in collaboration with Neuroscience faculty from Penn and allied institutions.

An initial short course in Matlab will introduce students to the basic methods of using computational techniques to model and analyze neuronal activity. After the course, students will conduct laboratory research under faculty supervision. Lectures and chalk talks will continue throughout the summer during the Summer Seminar Series, and participants present their research at a Symposium at the close of the program. The goal of the program is to foster an experience that integrates experimental and theoretical approaches to understanding neural function.

All undergraduates with an interest in Computational Neuroscience are encouraged to apply. Students seeking an introduction to more quantitative approaches and greater exposure to Neuroscience are encouraged to apply, regardless of background. All currently enrolled undergraduate students are eligible for our Summer Program, including currently enrolled seniors and international students. *Note: if admitted, international students will be required to obtain the J1 visa in order to participate in our paid program.

A $4,000 stipend will be provided to all participants for living expenses.

We are no longer accepting applications for the Summer 2012 program.

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Participating Faculty, Summer 2012

• Ted Abel, Brush Family Professor of Biology
  Genetic approaches to study the molecular basis of synaptic plasticity, memory storage, and sleep/wake regulation. Applications to schizophrenia, autism, and other disorders.


• Geoff Aguirre, Assistant Professor, Neurology
  The neural basis of normative and recovered high-level visual function.


• Vijay Balasubramanian, Associate Professor, Physics
  The structural and functional organization of sensory systems using both theoretical approaches and experiments in the mammalian retina.


• David Brainard, Professor, Psychology
  Visual psychophysics, computation, and machine learning. Interest in Bayesian models and color vision.


• Greg Carlson, Assistant Professor, Neuroscience, Psychiatry
  Autism, Cortical Dynamics, Epigenetics, Epilepsy, Learning and Memory, Molecular and Cellular Neuropathology, Pharmacogenetics, Rett Syndrome, Schizophrenia, Signal Transduction, Social Neuroscience


• Yale Cohen, Associate Professor, Otorhinolaryngology
  Understanding the representation of auditory information in the cortex, how auditory information is integrated with cognitive processes, and how auditory and visual information is combined to form unified sensory percepts


• Douglas Coulter, Associate Professor, Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
  The cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the development of epilepsy.


• Maria Geffen, Associate Professor, Otorhinolaryngology
  How ensembles of neurons communicate to encode information about natural sounds, and how this coding is shaped by our behavior and experience.


• Joshua Gold, Associate Professor, Neuroscience
  How the brain interprets and combines sensory input, internal preferences, and personal experience to guide behavior.


• Yixin Guo, Assistant Professor, Mathematics, Drexel University
  Biomathematics, dynamical systems, ordinary and partial differential equations, neuron modeling.


• Joshua Jacobs, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering (Drexel University)
  Direct human brain recordings, the neural basis of specific cognitive representations, multivariate statistics and machine learning.


• Mike Kahana, Professor, Psychology
  Computational and mathematical modeling of human memory. Analysis of human electrophysiological recordings in patients with implanted intracranial electrodes.


• Junhyong Kim, Professor of Biology and Co-Director of Penn Genome Frontiers Institute
  Using single-cell genomics and computational biology to study cellular function of mammalian neurons.


• Daniel Lee, Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering
  Computational neuroscience, machine learning, robotics, nonlinear dimensionality reduction algorithms.


• Hualou Liang, Associate Professor, School of Biomedical Engineering, Science & Health Systems, Drexel University
  Neuroinfomatics, cognitive and computational neuroscience, neural data analysis and computational modeling, biomedical signal processing.


• Brian Litt, Associate Professor, Neurology and Bioengineering
  Mechanisms of seizure generation, human electrophysiological signal analysis, hippocampal modeling, seizure detection algorithms, implantable devices for seizure detection and termination.


• Javier Medina, Assistant Professor, Psychology
  The link between neural activity, long-term plasticity and motor learning using psychology, in vivo neurophysiology, genetics, and computational neuroscience.


• Banu Onaral, Professor, Biomedical Engineering, Science & Health Systems, Drexel University
  Biomedical signal processing, complexity and scaling in biomedical signals, systems, and imaging.


• Robert Smith, Research Associate Professor, Neuroscience
  Computational modeling and electrophysiological recording of retina.


• Alan Stocker, Assistant Professor, Psychology
  Understanding visual information processing by the noisy brain, linking theory to perceptual behavior and physiological data.