The Program in Neural Computation (PNC) offers undergraduate training in computational neuroscience for students seeking training in the application of quantitative and computational approaches to the study of the brain. The Program is coordinated by the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (CNBC) a joint project of Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh, in collaboration with the various departments and schools in the two universities. Students will be mentored by faculty in mathematics, computer science, robotics, machine learning, statistics, neuroscience and psychology to apply computational and quantitative techniques to investigate neural mechanisms underlying perception, language, cognition, behavior at many different levels, from neural circuit modeling, to algorithms and computational principles. During the school year, CMU and Pitt students may be mentored by faculty from either university in the program. Summer training program is open to students from other universities in the United States.

PNC currently provides undergraduate training fellowships in computational neuroscience through a NIH training grant. The steering committee of the undergraduate training program include Drs. Rob Kass, Tai Sing Lee, Douglas Weber and Brent Doiron. Interested students and faculty should contact Dr. Tai Sing Lee at Carnegie Mellon or Dr. Douglas Weber at the University of Pittsburgh for information. There are two components to the fellowship program. The first is a full-year fellowship program, limited to CMU and Pitt students. The second is a summer training program which accepts applications from undergraduates from all over the U.S. Students can apply for the summer program directly using online application, but student admission to the full-year fellowship program is initiated by faculty nomination only. Therefore, applicants for the full-year fellowship program should contact and discuss research opportunities with any faculty in the Center for Neural Basis of Cognition working in the areas of neural computation and computational neuroscience (list of CNBC Faculty in Computational Neuroscience).

Information on the requirements and application for the Undergraduate Research Fellowships.

Students (from any U.S. undergraduate college) interested in the summer training program can apply directly online based on the following link.

Information on the application for the the Undergraduate Summer Research Experience Program.

UPNC summer fellows will engage in laboratory research for 10 weeks, and participate in a weekly lecture/journal club meeting on computational neuroscience.

Current activities and schedule for UPNC trainees can be found in Google UPNC (CNBC Undergraduate Computational Neuroscience Group) . Students are also encouraged to participate in many journal clubs and lectures in computational neuroscience or neuroscience offered by the two universities (see resources links below).

Currently, we are developing a Neural Computation minor for undergraduates at Carnegie Mellon, as well as an equivalent certificate program at the University of Pittsburgh.

Students interested in participating in computational neuroscience are encouraged to explore opportunities with CNBC faculty directly. If they need help in connecting to appropriate projects, they might also contact Dr. Tai Sing Lee at Carnegie Mellon or Dr. Douglas Weber at the University of Pittsburgh.

• CNBC Faculty in Computational Neuroscience

• Anatomically & Functionally Segmented Connectome of the Human Brain (Posted 8/22, 08). Professor Walter Schneider, University of Pittsburgh (email www@pitt.edu) is looking for computationally strong students on multiple exciting and computationally challenging small projects. The primary objective of the overall project is to develop and assess a Segmented Connectome technology to quantitatively segment and map the human brain based on anatomical and functional connectivity. It will provide a draft map of approximately 500 brain areas, quantifying their location, boundaries, connective topology, and anatomical and functional connective strength. The methods are expected to have wide application to future brain research and clinical assessment...

We are establishing a community of all undergraduate students interested in neural computation and computational neuroscience in the Pittsburgh area. We will have an email list (cnbc-upnc) for announcing activities (lectures, symposiums, parties) relevant to computational neuroscience, and for fostering communication and fellowship among students. To enroll in the email list, please contact Dr. Tai Sing Lee.

• UPNC SUMMER RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM. September 5, 08.
  UPNC summer research fellows (see below) are scheduled to present their summer research work in a public symposium on September 5, 3-5 p.m. in the CNBC conference room (Rm 115) at Mellon Institute. All are invited. This will be the FIRST event of the UPNC community. Please join us.

	Matt Bonakdarpour I am a rising senior at CMU double majoring in computer science and pure mathematics, with a minor in computational neuroscience. My advisor is Dr. David Touretzky My research project has to do with the neural representation of space. Specifically, we are analyzing data obtained from hippocampal place cells. Past experiments have shown that rats foraging for food, in the light, in identical environments (two similar boxes) create almost identical cognitive maps of the boxes. My project is to analyze data from rats foraging for food in the dark.
	Craig Lehocky Craig Lehocky is a senior, pursuing a dual degree in Bioengineering and Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh. Craig is from Freedom, PA, just outside of Pittsburgh. Craig researches in the lab of Dr. Aaron Batista, in the SensoriMotor Integration Laboratory and Engineering (SMILE Lab) Here, Craig and the SMILE group work to understand the neural mechanisms that control arm-reaching movements, with an emphasis towards developing neural prostheses. Specifically, Craig studies the communication between pre-motor neurons while macaque monkeys perform reaches. The title of his project, "Absence of fast-timescale correlations in macaque dorsal premotor cortex" indicates the nature of his preliminary findings: that correlations have been found to be very rare in this area of the brain so far.
	Michael Rule I am a junior at CMU, majoring in computer science and minoring in biology. My adviser is Dr. Bard Ermentrout, my project involves simulation of strobe-light induced hallucinations. Simple geometric hallucinations can be induced by a variety of means and are remarkably consistent across cultures, suggesting that these patterns result from the organization of the visual system.
	Ankit Khambhati Ankit Khambhati is a rising senior, pursuing a Bachelors of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a study in Pre-Medical Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. He is advised by Dr. Tai Sing Lee in the Active Perception Laboratory (APL) at the Center for Neural Basis of Cognition. Ankit is investigating the neural basis of the perception of solid luminance or color surface, building on earlier works on perceptual filling-in mechanisms. He attempts to connect the computational principle of efficient coding to the perceptual mechanisms of filling-in.
	Andrew Maas Andrew Maas is a senior majoring in computer science and cognitive science at Carnegie Mellon. His primary research interests are learning with few examples and transfer learning in humans and machines. His advisors are Dr. Charles Kemp and Dr. Drew Bagnell. This summer, Andrew and Charles are working to build a hierarchical Bayesian model of human concept learning.
	Geoffrey Dixon-Ernst Geoffrey Dixon-Ernst, a Pittsburgh native, is a senior at CMU with double majors in Electrical & Computer Engineering as well as Biomedical Engineering; he is also pursuing a minor in Music Performance. It is this eclectic blend of interests that initially got him interested in neurological research. He has been working this summer with Sameer Walawalkar as a part of Nathan Urban's lab. He has been analyzing magnetoencephalography (MEG) data for evidence of gamma-band synchrony during a visual attention task using various time-frequency representations. The experimental paradigm used differs from other approaches in that it de-emphasizes visual contrast and emphasizes non-foveal attention.

Undergraduates are welcome to participate or sit in on these journal clubs.

• Computational Neuroscience/Vision Journal Club

• Primate Neuroscience Journal Club

The Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition offers a Ph.D. training program in Neural Computation (PNC).

In collaboration with the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (CNBC), the School of Computer Science offers three training tracks in computational neuroscience:

• Neural Basis of Cognition specialization in the Ph.D. program in Computer Science.

• Neural Basis of Cognition track of the Ph.D. program in Robotics.

• Neural Basis of Cognition track of the Ph.D. program in Computational and Statistical Learning.