Event Details:
Agile movement and embodied intelligence
Abstract
I will tell several research stories with the broad theme of developing data-intensive approaches to connect brain and behavior. They all highlight my love of natural behaviors, dynamical systems, and open science. These vignettes feature several fun collaborations, including joint work with experimental neurobiologists, mathematicians, and engineers. In particular, I will ask how insects and birds perform dexterous, coordinated movements in uncertain, complex environments. This ability is enabled by the sensation of mechanical forces to inform rapid corrections in body orientation. In a set of results that combine biomechanics, sparse sensing mathematical theory, and neural encoding, we find that, far from being a bug, neural encoding by biological sensors is a feature that acts as a transformation superbly matched to detect body rotation. Our ongoing and future work explores biological principles that achieve agile movements, including understanding and designing neural-inspired sensors, actuators, and controllers.
Bing Brunton
University of Washington
Bing Wen Brunton joined the faculty at University of Washington (UW) in 2014 to build an interdisciplinary research program at the intersection of biology, neuroengineering, and data science. She is currently an Associate Professor and H. Stewart Parker Faculty Fellow at the Department of Biology, with affiliations at the eScience Institute for Data Science, the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, and the Department of Applied Mathematics. She studied at Caltech (2006, B.S. in Biology, focus on biophysics) and then Princeton (2012, Ph.D. in Neuroscience, focus on computational and systems neuroscience). Her postdoctoral work (2012--2014, University of Washington) expanded her expertise in applied mathematics, dynamical systems, and neuroengineering.
Her lab now develops data-driven analytic methods that are applied to, and are inspired by, neuroscience. The Brunton Lab is particularly interested in uncovering spatiotemporal patterns in high-dimensional, time-series data, especially exploring the neural basis of naturalistic movements in diverse animals. She has demonstrated a strong record of working collaboratively as a part of interdisciplinary teams, as well as mentoring early career researchers interested in advancing both methods development and neuroscience questions. Her work has been recognized with awards and honors, including the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship in Neuroscience (2016), a UW Innovation Award (2017), a Young Investigator Program award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (2018), and as a Weill Neurohub Investigator (2020) and a Moore Distinguished Scholar for visiting faculty at Caltech (2021).
About the Wu Tsai Neuro MBCT Seminar Series The Stanford Center for Mind, Brain, Computation and Technology Seminars (MBCT) explores ways in which computational and technical approaches are being used to advance the frontiers of neuroscience. It features speakers from other institutions, Stanford faculty and senior training program trainees.