IONs Director: Paul Katz

As we enter May, there are many exciting developments to announce. The annual UMass Interdisciplinary Neurosciences Conference will be held at the end of the month on Tuesday May 28th. This year it will have an emphasis on Neuroengineering and features two keynote speakers and 5 shorter talks from UMass faculty and faculty from Worcester Polytechnical Institute. In the morning leading up the lectures, there will be a Workshop on Methods in Systems Neuroscience and Neurotechnology. In the evening there will be a poster session, which is not limited to neuroengineering, but open to all students, postdocs, and faculty to present their neuroscience-related research. Registration is free, but the deadline is May 10th. At the conference, Chancellor Subbaswamy will be presenting keynote speaker Andrew Barto with a UMass Neurosciences Lifetime Achievement Award for his pioneering research into reinforcement learning.We are also excited by the beginning of a summer Neuroscience Seminar Series, which will meet Wednesdays at noon in Tobin 423 starting May 15th. It will mostly feature UMass faculty and post-docs. If you would like to speak, there are openings from June through August. Sign up here if you would like to speak.

This year, IONs participated in the #UMassGives campaign for the first time and raised $1300, which will go towards providing research experiences for undergraduates at UMass. It’s not too late to donate and help support IONs and the neuroscience community at UMass.

Finally, I am very pleased to welcome Alycia Fabry as the new administrative assistant for IONs. Alycia will bring her energy and enthusiasm to the many initiatives that we are working on.