Hello ION!

Next month the ION DEI committee will host "Rehearsals for Life", a grad student led group that provides interactive workshops on addressing difficult situations, based on scenarios that they act out, together with audience participation and discussion. These scenarios incorporate issues including confronting inappropriate behavior, handling power dynamics, and building positive interactions in diverse groups. I attended one of their workshops before the pandemic, and it was a very powerful and valuable experience.

The workshop is open to everyone in ION - students, postdocs, faculty, and staff - and in fact is designed to explore interactions across these different groups as well as different cultural backgrounds, gender, etc. 

Tuesday, May 23

3:30-5:00pm

Lawrence 166 (new location! map.uoregon.edu)

We hope to see you there!

Cris

Abstract: Neural representations of sensory stimuli are modulated by a variety of contextual factors, such as information on other stimuli present in the environment, the novelty or familiarity of the sensory inputs, and behavioral goals. Despite decades of attention in systems neuroscience, many questions persist regarding how sensory codes adapt to these different variables. Here, we study this problem in the olfactory system, which combines the advantages of being highly compact, allowing us to develop solvable theoretical models, and highly conserved, allowing us to derive general principles that are testable in relatively simple animal models (such as the locust or the fly) but are widely applicable across animal species, from insects to vertebrates. Our approach is based on the information-theoretic premise that optimal codes strive to maximize the overall entropy (decodability) of neural representations while minimizing neural costs. A novel feature of our theory is that it incorporates contextual feedback: this allows us to predict how optimal odor representations are modulated by top-down signals that represent the overall multi-sensory environment. We also show that the emerging optimal solutions can be implemented at the level of neural circuits through neuroplasticity. This result reconnects our theoretical findings to biologically plausible processes, thus bridging normative and mechanistic levels of analysis. Our theory is generalizable to other sensory systems and establishes a conceptual foundation for studying sensory coding associated with behavior.

https://neuroscience.wustl.edu/people/gaia-tavoni-phd/ 

https://sites.wustl.edu/tavonilab/ 

https://zywanglab.com/

NIH Career Symposium May 8-10 (all virtual)

The OITE is hosting the NIH Career Symposium, and hope you can encourage your postdocs, fellows, and grad students.  They will have the opportunity to hear from over 300 speakers (80%+ are NIH alum) in all career fields; academics, government, industry and non-profits. Valuable for trainees who know their career path and want hear what hiring committees are looking for and trainees who are still exploring their options. Trainees are welcome to come for just the sessions that interest them or the entire day.

• The full agenda is Here
• See the Speakers
• Registration is here (the event is free). https://whova.com/portal/registration/nihca_202305/

NIH Career Symposium May 8-10 (all virtual)

The OITE is hosting the NIH Career Symposium, and hope you can encourage your postdocs, fellows, and grad students.  They will have the opportunity to hear from over 300 speakers (80%+ are NIH alum) in all career fields; academics, government, industry and non-profits. Valuable for trainees who know their career path and want hear what hiring committees are looking for and trainees who are still exploring their options. Trainees are welcome to come for just the sessions that interest them or the entire day.

• The full agenda is Here
• See the Speakers
• Registration is here (the event is free). https://whova.com/portal/registration/nihca_202305/