Sunday June 28th - Saturday July 18th, 2009, Telluride, Colorado
Organizers:
Ralph Etienne-Cummings, Johns Hopkins University
Timothy Horiuchi, University of Maryland, College Park
Tobi Delbruck, Institute for Neuroinformatics, Zurich
2009 Topic Leaders:
Cognitive Systems: Gregor SCHOENER (Ruhr-Universität-Bochum) and Josh BONGARD (Univ. Vermont)
Robotics/Locomotion/Motor: Javier MOVELLAN (UC San Diego) and Tony LEWIS (Univ. Arizona)
Vision: Bert SHI (HKUST) and Shih-chii LIU (INI-Zurich)
Audition: Mounya EL HILALI (JHU) and Hynek HERMANSKY (JHU)
Technology/Techniques/Tutorials: Paul HASLER (GA Tech) and Jon TAPSON (Univ. Capetown)
Neuromorphic VLSI: John HARRIS (Univ. Florida) and John ARTHUR (Stanford Univ.)
Computational Neuroscience: Terry SEJNOWSKI (Salk Institute)
Workshop Advisory Board:
Andre van SCHAIK(University of Sydney)
Avis COHEN (University of Maryland)
Barbara SHINN-CUNNINGHAM (Boston University)
Giacomo INDIVERI (Institute of Neuroinformatics, UNI/ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
Rodney DOUGLAS (Institute of Neuroinformatics, UNI/ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
Shihab SHAMMA (University of Maryland)
We
invite applications for a three-week summer workshop that will be held
in Telluride, Colorado from Sunday June 28th - Saturday July 18th,
2009. The application deadline is *Friday, March 1st* and application
instructions are described at the bottom of this document.
The 2009 Workshop and Summer School on Neuromorphic Engineering is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Institute of Neuromorphic Engineering, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Institute for Neuroinformatics - University and ETH Zurich, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Maryland - College Park, Johns Hopkins University, Boston University, University of Sydney, and the Salk Institute.
Previous year workshop can be found at: http://ine-web.org/workshops/workshops-overview/index.html and last year's wiki is https://neuromorphs.net/ws2008/ .
GOALS:
Neuromorphic engineers design and fabricate artificial neural systems whose organizing principles are based on those of biological nervous systems. Over the past 12 years, this research community has focused on the understanding of low-level sensory processing and systems infrastructure; efforts are now expanding to apply this knowledge and infrastructure to addressing higher-level problems in perception, cognition, and learning. Inthis 3-week intensive workshop and through the Institute for Neuromorphic Engineering (INE), the mission is to promote interaction between seniorand junior researchers; to educate new members of the community; to introduce new enabling fields and applications to the community; to promote on-going collaborative activities emerging from the Workshop, and to promote a self-sustaining research field.
FORMAT:
The three week summer workshop will include background lectures on systems and cognitive neuroscience (in particular sensory processing, learning and memory, motor systems and attention), practical tutorials on analog VLSI design, mobile robots, hands-on projects, and special interest groups. Participants are required to take part and possibly complete at leastone of the projects proposed. They are furthermore encouraged to become involved in as many of the other activities proposed as interest and timeallow. There will be two lectures in the morning that cover issues that are important to the community in general. Because of the diverse range of backgrounds among the participants, some of these lectures will be tutorials, rather than detailed reports of current research. These lectures will be given by invited speakers. Projects and interest groups meet in the late afternoons, and after dinner. In the early afternoon there will be tutorials on a wide spectrum of topics, including analog VLSI, mobile robotics, auditory systems, central-pattern-generators, selective attention mechanisms, cognitive systems, etc.
LOCATION AND ARRANGEMENTS:
The summer school will take place in the small town of Telluride, 9000 feet high in Southwest Colorado, about 6 hours drive away from Denver (350 miles). Great Lakes Aviation and America West Express airlines provide daily flights directly into Telluride. All facilities within the beautifully renovated public school building are fully accessible to participants with disabilities. Participants will be housed in ski condominiums, withinwalking distance of the school. Participants are expected to share condominiums.
The workshop is intended to be very informal and hands-on. Participants are not required to have had previous experience in analog VLSI circuit design, computational or machine vision, systems level neurophysiology or modeling the brain at the systems level. However, we strongly encourage active researchers with relevant backgrounds from academia, industry and national laboratories to apply, in particular if they are prepared to work on specific projects, talk about their own work or bring demonstrations to Telluride (e.g. robots, chips, software). Wireless internet access will be provided. Technical staff present throughout the workshops will assist with software and hardware issues. We will have a network of PCs running LINUX and Microsoft Windows for the workshop projects. We encourage participants to bring along their personal laptop.
No cars are required. Given the small size of the town, we recommend thatyou do not rent a car. Bring hiking boots, warm clothes, rain gear, and a backpack, since Telluride is surrounded by beautiful mountains.
Unless otherwise arranged with one of the organizers, we expect participants to stay for the entire duration of this three week workshop.
------ FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENTS: ------
Notification of acceptances will be mailed out around mid March 2009.
The
Workshop covers all your accommodations and facilities costs. You
areresponsible for your own travel to the Workshop. For expenses not
covered by federal funds, a Workshop registration fee is required. The
fee is $550 per participant, however, due to the difference in travel
cost, we offer a discount to non-US participants. European registration
fees will bereduced to $300; non-US/non-European registration fees will
be reduced to $150. The cost of a shared condominium will be covered
for all academicparticipants but upgrades to a private room will cost
extra. Participants from National Laboratories and Industry are
expected to pay for these condominiums.
------ HOW TO APPLY: -------
Applicants should be at the level of graduate students or above (i.e. postdoctoral fellows, faculty, research and engineering staff and the equivalent positions in industry and national laboratories). We actively encourage women and minority candidates to apply.
Anyone interested in proposing specific projects should contact the appropriate topic leaders directly.
The application website is (after January 1st, 2009):
http://ine-web.org/telluride-conference-2009/apply-info
Application will include:
* First name, Last name, Affiliation, valid e-mail address.
* Curriculum Vitae.
* One page summary of background and interests relevant to the workshop, including possible ideas for workshop projects.
* Two letters of recommendation (uploaded directly by references).
The application deadline is March 1, 2009.
Applicants will be notified by e-mail.
1 January, 2009 - Applications accepted on website
1 March, 2009 - Applications Due
mid-March - Notification of Acceptance
