2016 Neuroscience Ph.D. Applicant Thread People Thing

[proton]

thanks so much for the info @bdnf_13.1

[NeuroMetro]

@bdnf_13.1 has Brown contacted you about travel arrangement yet? I've been getting a bit antsy.

[brainsandeggs]

Just now, NeuroMetro said:

@bdnf_13.1 has Brown contacted you about travel arrangement yet? I've been getting a bit antsy.

They sent me an invite before christmas, and still haven't sent me anything re: travel also...I think I''m gonna take a bus but still 

[NeuroMetro]

Heh no bus for me considering my distance :-) Not that I am a snob about roughing it, but February is going to be a busy month for all of us!

[Edotdl]

Just got Caltech CNS interview!!!! Dates are 2/18-19.

[bdnf_13.1]

5 hours ago, NeuroMetro said:

@bdnf_13.1 has Brown contacted you about travel arrangement yet? I've been getting a bit antsy.

Nope not yet! But it's not for awhile so I'm just waiting it out for another week or so before I let myself worry about it (side note, I wish it was sooner) 

[watsonthatcucumberpatch]

Just got the Caltech Neurobiology interview invite! It's an online interview via Zoom (I dunno if that's because I'm an international student). Has anyone gotten an on-campus interview invite?

[Edotdl]

Just now, watsonthatcucumberpatch said:

Just got the Caltech Neurobiology interview invite! It's an online interview via Zoom (I dunno if that's because I'm an international student). Has anyone gotten an on-campus interview invite?

Yes mine is on-campus. It's probably because you are international.

[watsonthatcucumberpatch]

Just now, Edotdl said:

Yes mine is on-campus. It's probably because you are international.

But I think yours is a different program. I applied to Neurobiology. Yours is CNS, right?

[hoste058]

What is the appropriate way to contact admissions to see if they've sent out all of their invites? I'm not exactly sure how to word my email.

And I'm waiting to hear back from UWashington, UC-Denver, and Vandy.... any hope left for me on those schools?

[robot_control]

Oh boy, the life sciences forum seems much more active than the engineering one. I just got an interview call (Skype, international) for Caltech CNS. My interests are more on the machine learning, computer vision, and robotic control side though. All my POIs have joint appointments with the CMS department.

I just wanted to get a sense of where CNS stands in the neuroscience and natural sciences community. Caltech's CMS/CDS and EE programs are certainly top notch and probably top 3-5 in the world. Is the CNS program of similar stature, or are the MIT, UCB etc. programs well ahead? 

[optogent]

 

17 minutes ago, robot_control said:

Oh boy, the life sciences forum seems much more active than the engineering one. I just got an interview call (Skype, international) for Caltech CNS. My interests are more on the machine learning, computer vision, and robotic control side though. All my POIs have joint appointments with the CMS department.

I just wanted to get a sense of where CNS stands in the neuroscience and natural sciences community. Caltech's CMS/CDS and EE programs are certainly top notch and probably top 3-5 in the world. Is the CNS program of similar stature, or are the MIT, UCB etc. programs well ahead? 

I think that rankings are mainly subjective and trivial, but Caltech was ranked 3rd in neuroscience here:

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/neurosciences-rankings

Perhaps another indicator of quality is that it was the school that received the most BRAIN initiative grants. 

However, remember that it is a small school (300 professors, 1,000 grads, 1,000 undergrads), so make sure that you have a few professors that you could see yourself working for.

 

[Yav Friendly]

42 minutes ago, robot_control said:

Oh boy, the life sciences forum seems much more active than the engineering one. I just got an interview call (Skype, international) for Caltech CNS. My interests are more on the machine learning, computer vision, and robotic control side though. All my POIs have joint appointments with the CMS department.

I just wanted to get a sense of where CNS stands in the neuroscience and natural sciences community. Caltech's CMS/CDS and EE programs are certainly top notch and probably top 3-5 in the world. Is the CNS program of similar stature, or are the MIT, UCB etc. programs well ahead? 

I am not sure how close is the field defined by "Computational Neuroscience" to what you do. But you might what to take a look at this blog post. http://fairhalllab.com/2013/06/14/pursuing-computational-neuroscience/

I think it is very wise for a engineer to dive into neuroscience. And Caltech certainly have one of the best computational neuroscience program even if it is not ranked high enough due to many factors.

[robot_control]

Thank you @optogent and @Yav Friendly for your comments.

I wouldn't say my field of interest is computational neuroscience, but it is certainly related and draws from it. I am more interested in the robotics end of things. How artificial neural networks can be used to make robots intelligent. For this, I am interested in mainly two parts: perception (mostly vision) and control. I think both have good connections with neuroscience.

Till now, computer vision has not followed the path of biological vision, but my understanding is that the landscape is changing dramatically. Ideas from biological vision (particularly sampling) are taking over out in the wild type perception tasks useful for dynamic decision making. Control on the other hand is much more intimately tied to neuroscience for quite some time - particularly motor control and TD learning.

However, I don't think I will be happy with studying "how does the brain perform a task". Rather, I would be happy to take inspiration from neuroscience, but I am more interested in "how to make a robot do a task", which may or may not imitate how the human brain works. I think I need to make it clear to the profesors. As you said, Caltech is a small place, and I can see myself working with only 2-3 professors. Though I am very happy with the interview invite, I am not 100% convinced if CNS is the ideal program for me. I really hope I click with the POIs though, since Caltech is Caltech!

[Yav Friendly]

4 minutes ago, robot_control said:

Thank you @optogent and @Yav Friendly for your comments.

I wouldn't say my field of interest is computational neuroscience, but it is certainly related and draws from it. I am more interested in the robotics end of things. How artificial neural networks can be used to make robots intelligent. For this, I am interested in mainly two parts: perception (mostly vision) and control. I think both have good connections with neuroscience.

Till now, computer vision has not followed the path of biological vision, but my understanding is that the landscape is changing dramatically. Ideas from biological vision (particularly sampling) are taking over out in the wild type perception tasks useful for dynamic decision making. Control on the other hand is much more intimately tied to neuroscience for quite some time - particularly motor control and TD learning.

However, I don't think I will be happy with studying "how does the brain perform a task". Rather, I would be happy to take inspiration from neuroscience, but I am more interested in "how to make a robot do a task", which may or may not imitate how the human brain works. I think I need to make it clear to the profesors. As you said, Caltech is a small place, and I can see myself working with only 2-3 professors. Though I am very happy with the interview invite, I am not 100% convinced if CNS is the ideal program for me. I really hope I click with the POIs though, since Caltech is Caltech!

You comment is very enlightening. I am not a engineer but I have been studying control theory the past two years and I believe this is where systems biology research should be heading to, or at least what I am interested in. For me how brain perform a task might be a more interesting question. But it may be too difficult now to really build a brain to test a theory. In any case, I hope you can build robotics that can perform complex tasks with a good trade-off of efficiency, accuracy and robustness. One day you may build a brain!

[robot_control]

10 minutes ago, Yav Friendly said:

You comment is very enlightening. I am not a engineer but I have been studying control theory the past two years and I believe this is where systems biology research should be heading to, or at least what I am interested in. For me how brain perform a task might be a more interesting question. But it may be too difficult now to really build a brain to test a theory. In any case, I hope you can build robotics that can perform complex tasks with a good trade-off of efficiency, accuracy and robustness. One day you may build a brain!

Haha, that seems decades away though. As an aside, I am absolutely convinced that control theory is one of the most awesome topics in the world. It has fertile connections to AI (reinforcement learning), synthetic biology (feedback circuits), and even economics! Systems and synthetic biology is certainly an exciting direction, with most control theorists (including my adviser) readying their guns to take aim. Though I am not directly interested in it (you can only choose one area, ), I am very excited for it, and hoping to keep myself up to date with the developments. In case it gets super hot, I'll probably jump ship  Best wishes for your grad school applications!

[Yav Friendly]

1 hour ago, robot_control said:

Haha, that seems decades away though. As an aside, I am absolutely convinced that control theory is one of the most awesome topics in the world. It has fertile connections to AI (reinforcement learning), synthetic biology (feedback circuits), and even economics! Systems and synthetic biology is certainly an exciting direction, with most control theorists (including my adviser) readying their guns to take aim. Though I am not directly interested in it (you can only choose one area, ), I am very excited for it, and hoping to keep myself up to date with the developments. In case it gets super hot, I'll probably jump ship  Best wishes for your grad school applications!

Do you know John Doyle in Caltech? IMAO, he is truly a remarkable control theoretist (http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~doyle/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page) and is one of the pioneers in applying control theory in systems biology and neuroscience. Although I do not think he is affiliated with the CNS program. He has been advocating a so-called universal laws in recent years (you can find details on his website) and is basically claiming everything has designed trade-offs and can be studied by control theory (politics, climate change, cellular systems, ecology etc). Intoxicated by him, I truly believe this is where a lot of scientific fields should go in the future. (Especially this may make social science a real science). Unfortunately I am not good enough to go to Caltech. In any case, good luck to your application too.

Edited January 10, 2016 by Yav Friendly

[robot_control]

@Yav Friendly Thanks for the info. Prof. Doyle is an absolute legend in control theory, and his robust control paper "State-space solutions to standard H 2 and H∞ control problems" (popularly known as DGKF paper) arguably marks the birth of modern control theory. But I don't think he is affiliated with the CNS program. Caltech also have another legend, Prof. Richard Murray who pioneered Networked Control Systems. However, both of them seem to work on systems and synthetic biology at the moment, as opposed to AI based robotic systems, which is a shame. For bio-enthused students, I think Caltech, UCSD, and ETH-Z are probably the top places. 

I will have an interview with Prof. Burdick who is their only robotics type control theorist (adviser of Jorge Cham, PhD comics!), and I plan on asking him about possible collaborations with other control theorists, machine learners, and vision experts. Keeping my fingers crossed Thanks again for your comments.

[Yav Friendly]

1 minute ago, robot_control said:

@Yav Friendly Thanks for the info. Prof. Doyle is an absolute legend in control theory, and his robust control paper "State-space solutions to standard H 2 and H∞ control problems" (popularly known as DGKF paper) arguably marks the birth of modern control theory. But I don't think he is affiliated with the CNS program. Caltech also have another legend, Prof. Richard Murray who pioneered Networked Control Systems. However, both of them seem to work on systems and synthetic biology at the moment, as opposed to AI based robotic systems, which is a shame. For bio-enthused students, I think Caltech, UCSD, and ETH-Z are probably the top places. 

I will have an interview with Prof. Burdick who is their only robotics type control theorist (adviser of Jorge Cham, PhD comics!), and I plan on asking him about possible collaborations with other control theorists, machine learners, and vision experts. Keeping my fingers crossed Thanks again for your comments.

I am actually currently a master student in ETH and working with one of the friends of Doyle and Murray's. Unfortunately I switched to control too late to be able to have a shot at Caltech.

[robot_control]

3 minutes ago, Yav Friendly said:

I am actually currently a master student in ETH and working with one of the friends of Doyle and Murray's. Unfortunately I switched to control too late to be able to have a shot at Caltech.

Oh! This is funny. ETH is probably my top choice. I have applied to Prof. Raffaello D'Andrea and Prof. Andreas Krause there. Incidentally Prof. D'Andrea got his PhD from Caltech under Prof. Murray and Prof. Krause was a professor at Caltech till a few years back, before moving to ETH. I can't help but wish I was born 5 years sooner, that would have been a golden time!

[Yav Friendly]

12 minutes ago, robot_control said:

Oh! This is funny. ETH is probably my top choice. I have applied to Prof. Raffaello D'Andrea and Prof. Andreas Krause there. Incidentally Prof. D'Andrea got his PhD from Caltech under Prof. Murray and Prof. Krause was a professor at Caltech till a few years back, before moving to ETH. I can't help but wish I was born 5 years sooner, that would have been a golden time!

I was lucky enough to took Krause's machine learning in 2013 (he was teaching it in place of another professor, who is a remarkable information-theoeist himself, but widely considered a not-very-good teacher here). And I heard girls here like D'Andrea very much ('cause he is handsome). They are certainly top professors in your field. I am working with a control-theorist who is highly motivated by synthetic biology now.

Edited January 10, 2016 by Yav Friendly

[optogent]

 

1 hour ago, Yav Friendly said:

Do you know John Doyle in Caltech? IMAO, he is truly a remarkable control theoretist (http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~doyle/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page) and is one of the pioneers in applying control theory in systems biology and neuroscience. Although I do not think he is affiliated with the CNS program. He has been advocating a so-called universal laws in recent years (you can find details on his website) and is basically claiming everything has designed trade-offs and can be studied by control theory (politics, climate change, cellular systems, ecology etc). Intoxicated by him, I truly believe this is where a lot of scientific fields should go in the future. (Especially this may make social science a real science). Unfortunately I am not good enough to go to Caltech. In any case, good luck to your application too.

Prof. Doyle guest lectured one of my classes and it was awesome! He's incredibly passionate about his research and I'm sure he'd great to work with.

[Neuro PolarBear]

5 hours ago, robot_control said:

Thank you @optogent and @Yav Friendly for your comments.

I wouldn't say my field of interest is computational neuroscience, but it is certainly related and draws from it. I am more interested in the robotics end of things. How artificial neural networks can be used to make robots intelligent. For this, I am interested in mainly two parts: perception (mostly vision) and control. I think both have good connections with neuroscience.

Till now, computer vision has not followed the path of biological vision, but my understanding is that the landscape is changing dramatically. Ideas from biological vision (particularly sampling) are taking over out in the wild type perception tasks useful for dynamic decision making. Control on the other hand is much more intimately tied to neuroscience for quite some time - particularly motor control and TD learning.

However, I don't think I will be happy with studying "how does the brain perform a task". Rather, I would be happy to take inspiration from neuroscience, but I am more interested in "how to make a robot do a task", which may or may not imitate how the human brain works. I think I need to make it clear to the profesors. As you said, Caltech is a small place, and I can see myself working with only 2-3 professors. Though I am very happy with the interview invite, I am not 100% convinced if CNS is the ideal program for me. I really hope I click with the POIs though, since Caltech is Caltech!

In response to your original question and this quote, I think asking how the CNS program at Caltech stands in the neuroscience community is the wrong question to ask since neuroscience and even theoretical neuroscience have been slow to incorporate machine learning and have not yet really embraced a lot of the research in computational neuroscience—even though, as you admit, have decent ties to neuroscience. A lot more of the work on machine learning, neuromorphic engineering, CNNs, etc. has definitely come out of the fields of computer vision, electrical engineering, computer science, and statistics, rather than neuroscience. That said, given your interests, I think you could still find professors there that are good fits, but I'm sure the general neuroscience community is more familiar with Caltech faculty like David Anderson and Markus Meister whose work is much more grounded in biology.

The professors that might be best for you are probably less likely to have primary appointments in neuroscience, as mentioned above, so I think it's probably harder to figure out exactly what type of program to apply to. I bet you'll have a better sense after interviews! I'm not as familiar with the more computational side of things, but I'd suggest looking at the faculty at past COSYNE and NIPS meetings.

For motor control and machine learning, John Cunningham, who came out of Krishna Shenoy's lab at Stanford, is doing some very interesting work.

[Yav Friendly]

2 hours ago, optogent said:

 

Prof. Doyle guest lectured one of my classes and it was awesome! He's incredibly passionate about his research and I'm sure he'd great to work with.

And you study optical genetics?

[robot_control]

@Micecroscopy Thanks for the comments. I think it would be more appropriate to ask the inverse question - how relevant, conventional, or advantageous would a neuroscience based degree be for motor control, vision etc. in the context or robotics. How the CNS program is viewed in the engineering and CS communities. 

What drew me to the CNS program was that it isn't a conventional neuroscience program - majority of its faculty and affiliates are not biologists. I felt that it combined neural networks based methods for vision and control which is an exciting area. As you said, I am really hyped up for the interview, and would like to make it click. I'm still waiting for a few other programs though, which might be better fits - particularly ETH, CMU (RI), and UWashington. Best wishes for your applications!