Theory of Biological Computation Student Seminar

We are writing to invite you to join the Theory of Biological Computation Seminar and Reading Group. This informal, student-led (professor-free) seminar series and reading group will be on Tuesday evenings from 6pm to 8pm in BBB B101 (NeuroTechers Lounge). If interested in attending, please RSVP to Anish Sarma.

Previous topics in this series have been dynamical systems, artificial neural networks, associative memory, biological learning, and statistical methods.

This week's topic will be an introduction to information theory, including mathematical definitions (and intuitive understanding), beginning with the idea of a distribution. We will then look at some neural applications of information theory, such as analyzing diffuse-to-bounds models (energy consumption/bandwidth/task performance curves) and compression in the retina.

We are also organizing tutorials ranging from choosing your advisor to software packages for machine learning to basic neural anatomy. Don't know what all of these areas are? That's great! This series is meant to provide a roadmap to help incoming students navigate courses and topics and to meet the quantitative neuro and bio communities at Caltech. Want to hear about additional topics? Well, so do we! This seminar grew out of an informal reading group driven by our interests and we hope to keep that flexible attitude moving forward by adjusting the topics and papers based upon the interest of all the participants.

Hope to see you all Tuesday!