Connectionists: 2008 Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop Announcement

[Ralph Etienne-Cummings]

NEUROMORPHIC COGNITION ENGINEERING WORKSHOP
Sunday, JUNE 29th - Saturday, JULY 19th, 2008
Telluride, Colorado

Call for Applications Deadline: March 23rd, 2008

Avis COHEN (University of Maryland)
Rodney DOUGLAS (Institute of Neuroinformatics, UNI/ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
Ralph ETIENNE-CUMMINGS (Johns Hopkins University)
Paul HASLER (Georgia Institute of Technology)
Timmer HORIUCHI (University of Maryland)
Giacomo INDIVERI (Institute of Neuroinformatics, UNI/ETH Zurich, 
Switzerland)
Tobias Delbruck (Institute of Neuroinformatics, UNI/ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
Terrence SEJNOWSKI (Salk Institute and UCSD)
Shihab SHAMMA (University of Maryland)
Barbara SHINN-CUNNINGHAM (Boston University)
Andre van SCHAIK(University of Sydney)

We invite applications for a three week summer workshop that will be 
held in Telluride, Colorado from Sunday, June 29th to Saturday, July 
19th, 2008. The application deadline is Friday, March 23rd, and 
application instructions are described at the bottom of this document.

The 2008 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 - ETHZ, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of 
Maryland - College Park, Johns Hopkins University, Boston University, 
University of Sydney, and the Salk Institute.

Last year's workshop was an exciting event and a great success. We 
strongly encourage interested parties to browse through the previous 
workshop web pages at: http://ine-web.org/workshops/past-workshops

GOALS:

Neuromorphic engineers design and fabricate artificial neural systems 
whose detailed architecture, design, and computational 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.  The annual three-week 
intensive Workshop (held in Telluride, Colorado) consists of background 
lectures (from leading researchers in biological, cognitive, 
computational, engineering and learning sciences), practical tutorials 
(from state-of-the-art practitioners), hands-on projects (involving 
established researchers and newcomers/students), and special interest 
discussion groups (proposed by the workshop participants).  In this 
workshop and through the Institute for Neuromorphic Engineering (INE), 
the mission is to promote interaction between senior and 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.

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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 least one of the projects proposed. They are furthermore 
encouraged to become involved in as many of the other activities 
proposed as interest and time allow. 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, many of these lectures will be tutorials, rather than 
detailed reports of current research. These lectures will be given by 
invited speakers. Participants will be free to explore and play with 
whatever they choose in the afternoon. Projects and interest groups meet 
in the late afternoons, and after dinner. In the early afternoon there 
will be tutorial on a wide spectrum of topics, including analog VLSI, 
mobile robotics, auditory systems, central-pattern-generators, selective 
attention mechanisms, cognitive systems, etc.


Projects that are carried out during the workshop will be centered in a 
number of working groups, including:

* active vision

* audition

* motor control and locomotion

* robotics

* multichip communication

* analog VLSI

* learning and memory

* neuroprosthetic systems

* cognitive neuroscience and attention


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 
(350miles). 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, within walking 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). 
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 also plan to provide wireless internet access and encourage 
participants to bring along their personal laptop.

No cars are required. Given the small size of the town, we recommend 
that you 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 ARRANGEMENT:

Notification of acceptances will be mailed out around mid April 2008.  
The Workshop covers all your accommodations and facilities costs.  You 
are responsible for your own travel to the Workshop.  For expenses not 
covered by federal funds, a Workshop registration fee is required.  The 
fee is $500 per participant, however, due to the difference in travel 
cost, we offer a discount to the non-US participants.  European 
registration fees will be reduced by $250; non-US/non-European 
registration fees will be reduced by $400.   The cost of a shared 
condominium will be covered for all academic participants 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.

The application website is (after February 15th, 2008): 
http://ine-web.org/telluride-conference-2008/apply/

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.
* Two letters of recommendation (uploaded directly by references).

The application deadline is Friday, March 23, 2008.
Applicants will be notified by e-mail by the end of April.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ralph Etienne-Cummings
Associate  Professor
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

105 Barton Hall/3400 N. Charles St.		
Johns Hopkins University			
Baltimore, MD 21218				
Email:  retienne at jhu.edu			E
URL:  http://etienne.ece.jhu.edu/~etienne		

Tel:  410 - 516 - 3494				
Fax:  410 - 516 - 5566