I plan to develop a low-cost, open-source platform for testing the perceptual and cognitive abilities of animals in the wild. This would be a continuation of my Wild Behavior project from the last Dinacon, with the ability to survey new animals and try out new technologies in a different environment. Additionally, I would like to lead a workshop on field neuroscience, potentially recording brain activity from insects, or recording and modeling group dynamics (ant colonies, swarms of gnats, etc.).
I am a behavioral and computational neuroscientist who’s work connects brain-machine interface engineering with behavioral studies of sensory perception. In short, I design technologies that let us “see” what brains are doing and try to connect this to what humans and animals are thinking and feeling. With my “Wild Behavior” project, I am trying to take the types of behavioral experiments we perform in the lab and bring them into the wild, letting us study things like perception, memory and decision-making in a diverse range of species. At Dinacon, I would like to combine my expertise designing behavioral systems with the opportunity to interact with and learn from a diverse community of makers, designers, and artists to create an open platform for field neuroscience.