September 11, 2013
$453,000 in funds to support an advanced study of the neural architectures that enable object recognition
$453,000 in funds to support an advanced study of the neural architectures that enable object recognition
LA JOLLA, CA—Salk scientist Tatyana Sharpee has received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to fund upcoming research in her lab. The CAREER award supports faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.
An associate professor in the Laboratorio de Neurobiología Computacional, Sharpee will receive $453,000 over the next five years to fund her proposed study: “Characterizing feature selectivity and invariance in deep neural architectures.” In an effort to help elucidate the principles that make robust object recognition possible, she will explore how an organism’s neurons are able to demonstrate both “invariance,” which produces a similar response to the same object even when observed from different viewpoints, and “selectivity,” which requires different responses to potentially quite similar objects. The results of her study will help reveal the common principles of sensory processing in the brain and may ultimately lead to improved designs of artificial recognition systems, including sensory prostheses.
Sharpee received her Ph.D. in Physics at Michigan State University and was a Sloan-Swartz Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, San Francisco. In the Computational Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute, Sharpee and her team work on theoretical principles of how the brain processes information.
Acerca del Instituto Salk de Estudios Biológicos:
El Instituto Salk de Estudios Biológicos es una de las instituciones de investigación básica más destacadas del mundo, donde un cuerpo docente de prestigio internacional investiga cuestiones fundamentales de las ciencias de la vida en un entorno único, colaborativo y creativo. Centrados tanto en el descubrimiento como en la formación de las futuras generaciones de investigadores, los científicos del Salk realizan contribuciones revolucionarias a nuestra comprensión del cáncer, el envejecimiento, el Alzheimer, la diabetes y las enfermedades infecciosas mediante el estudio de la neurociencia, la genética, la biología celular y vegetal, y otras disciplinas relacionadas.
Los logros del cuerpo docente han sido reconocidos con numerosos galardones, entre los que se incluyen premios Nobel y la pertenencia a la Academia Nacional de Ciencias. Fundado en 1960 por el Dr. Jonas Salk, pionero en la vacuna contra la poliomielitis, el Instituto es una organización independiente sin fines de lucro y un hito arquitectónico.
About the NSF:
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. In fiscal year 2012, its budget was $7 billion. NSF funds reach all fifty states through grants to nearly 2,000 colleges, universities and other institutions.
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