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Events

  • May
    12

    Appl Math: Adrienne Fairhall on "In Search of Internal Mental Models" - Reiss Lecture

    McCormick-Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics (ESAM)

    4:00 PM Hive Room 2350, Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center

    EVENT DETAILS

    Title: In Search of Internal Mental Models - Reiss Lecture

    Speaker: Adrienne Fairhall, University of Washington

    Abstract: How do we build the mental models that we use to perceive, navigate and reason about the world? How might these models be inferred from neural activity? I will describe experiments and analysis in collaboration with Beth Buffalo's lab to explore these questions in our closest relatives, nonhuman primates. In one example, we compare monkey and human behavior in a decision task, and analyze how subjects make use of visual information and feedback to infer a hidden rule, where the rule switches in an uncued fashion. We fit a suite of behavioral models and learn that while humans are close to optimal Bayesian agents, monkey behavior is better fit as reinforcement learning. This allows us to seek neural implementations of this internal belief update. Further, while rodent hippocampus famously encodes the animal's spatial location, we find evidence that hippocampus in the primate serves a more cognitive role.

    Zoom: TBA

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    TIME Monday, May 12, 2025 at 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

    LOCATION Hive Room 2350, Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center    map it

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    CONTACT Ted Shaeffer    ted.shaeffer@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR McCormick-Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics (ESAM)

  • Sep
    8

    Welcome & Breakfast for New McCormick PhD Students

    McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

    9:00 AM LR2 & Tech East Plaza, Technological Institute

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Monday, September 8, 2025 at 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM

    LOCATION LR2 & Tech East Plaza, Technological Institute    map it

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    CONTACT Andi Joppie    andi.joppie@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

  • Sep
    12

    New Undergraduate Fall 2025 Registration

    University Academic Calendar

    All Day

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Friday, September 12, 2025

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    CONTACT Office of the Registrar    nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR University Academic Calendar

  • Sep
    15

    Welcome & Luncheon for New Full-time Graduate Students

    McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

    11:00 AM Ryan Auditorium & Tech East Plaza, Technological Institute

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Monday, September 15, 2025 at 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM

    LOCATION Ryan Auditorium & Tech East Plaza, Technological Institute    map it

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    CONTACT Andi Joppie    andi.joppie@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

  • Sep
    16

    Fall Classes Begin. Change of Registration (Drop/Add) Late registration for returning students begins

    University Academic Calendar

    All Day

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Tuesday, September 16, 2025

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    CONTACT Office of the Registrar    nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR University Academic Calendar