The Simons Foundation’s Autism and Neuroscience division, which includes the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI), the Simons Collaboration on Plasticity and the Aging Brain (SCPAB) and the Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain (SCGB), supports conferences or courses that align with the scientific missions of our programs.
Conferences and courses with a focus on the fields of systems and computational neuroscience, healthy cognitive aging and/or basic autism science will be prioritized. We especially encourage applications for conferences and courses held and/or organized by people in regions of the world where opportunities for neuroscience courses or conferences have historically been less numerous.
Examples of currently funded courses include:
CAMP@Bangalore
Bengaluru, India
Computational Approaches to Memory and Plasticity: We invite PhD students and Postdocs worldwide from all backgrounds to CAMP@Bangalore. At this intensive 16 day course, students will be trained in theoretical and computational modeling across different scales of space, time and complexity, involved in memory and plasticity in the brain. This flavour of CAMP will focus on synaptic plasticity. The course will have lectures, hands-on tutorials, and project work to launch students into the exciting field of computational neuroscience.
Computational and Cognitive Neuroscience (CCN) Summer School
Suzhou, China
Designed to emphasize higher cognitive functions and their underlying neural circuit mechanisms, the course aims at training talented and highly motivated students and postdoctoral fellows from Asia and around the world. We welcome both applicants with quantitative backgrounds (including physics, mathematics, engineering and computer science) and those with experimental backgrounds.
IBRO-Simons Computational Neuroscience Imbizo
Cape Town, South Africa
This southern hemisphere summer school aims to promote promote computational neuroscience in Africa. It will bring together international and local students under the tutelage of the world’s leading experts in the field. Like its international sister courses, this three-week summer school aims to teach central ideas, methods and practices of modern computational neuroscience through a combination of lectures and hands-on project work.
Methods in Computational Neuroscience
Woods Hole, Massachusetts, U.S.
Methods in Computational Neuroscience introduces students to the computational and mathematical techniques that are used to address how the brain solves complex problems at levels of neural organization ranging from single membrane channels to operations of the entire brain. This course is appropriate for graduate students, postdocs and faculty in a variety of fields, from zoology, ethology and neurobiology to physics, engineering and mathematics.
NeuroBridges
Cluny, France
Decision-making is the cognitive process of selecting a course of action from a set of alternatives. Decisions can be sensory-based, perceptual-based, memory-based or social-based, depending on the cues and evidence available to the agent. The school will primarily consider the neural basis and computational principles underlying decision-making in sensory-motor tasks, in which the agent chooses from a small number of actions based on sensory and operant cues. Another objective of NeuroBridges is to bring together Mediterranean and Middle Eastern scientists to promote international scientific cooperation between young researchers from these countries. The organizers of NeuroBridges are convinced that such scientific collaborations can lead to personal relations that eventually may alleviate the political distress in the Middle East.
Summer Workshop on the Dynamic Brain
Friday Harbor, Washington, U.S.
This intensive two-week, project-based interdisciplinary course aims to give advanced students in neuroscience, biology, physics, engineering and computer science a rapid introduction to the current state of understanding of the neurobiology of sensory processing, coding and neural population dynamics. In addition, the course makes extensive use of data science tools for team-based projects and computational tools for analysis of large-scale and multimodal neural data sets.
Neuromatch Academy
Neuromatch Academy is a three week online summer school launched in response to the current Covid-19 crisis, which shut down nearly every summer program in the world. The course aims to introduce traditional and emerging tools of computational neuroscience to trainees. Our student population ranges from undergraduates to faculty in academic settings and also includes industry professionals. Students have a diversity of backgrounds including experimental and computational neuroscience and machine learning. In addition to teaching the technical details of computational methods, we also provide a curriculum centered on modern neuroscience concepts taught by leading professors along with explicit instruction on how and why to apply models.
Transylvanian Experimental Neuroscience Summer School (TENSS)
Pike Lake, Romania
TENSS concentrates top-level international expertise to teach a dozen students techniques and concepts in experimental systems neuroscience. We focus on modern optical and electrophysiological methods to study the connectivity and function of neuronal circuits. The course is designed to be intensive and highly interactive, including both lab sessions and theoretical lectures.
Examples of currently funded conferences include:
COSYNE
COSYNE was founded in 2004 to provide an inclusive forum for the exchange of empirical and theoretical approaches to problems in systems neuroscience, in order to understand how neural systems function.
AREADNE
The AREADNE Conferences form a series of biennial scientific meetings on neural ensembles. The meetings use a single-track, limited attendance format that emphasizes interaction and discussion in a relaxed atmosphere.
Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Brain Aging
For nearly 35 years, this conference has explored the roles of protein phosphatases in normal physiology and pathological conditions.
Neural Mechanisms of Cognitive Function
This event aims to promote an integrative debate on the physiological neural mechanisms and internal states that give rise to cognitive functions. By integrating knowledge from various perspectives in neuroscience, we aim to foster a holistic understanding of brain function.
Gordon Research Conferences
The Gordon Research Conferences provide an international forum for the presentation and discussion of frontier research in the biological, chemical, physical and engineering sciences and their interfaces. The Autism and& Neuroscience division funds GRCs through a common block grant.
Meeting on Language in Autism
The focus of the Meeting on Language in Autism (MoLA) is on the scientific study of the emergence, use and nature of language in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Language impairment, though not a core symptom of ASD, is one of the most important predictors of long-term outcomes and independence. The study of language in ASD also has the potential to inform our understanding of language itself, as we explore why some individuals with ASD have difficulties with certain domains of language while other domains remain fully intact. It is our goal to bring together researchers approaching questions about language in autism from a variety of backgrounds, topics and approaches.
21st Workshop Fragile X Syndrome & Other Neurodevelopmental Disorders
This conference emphasizes recent breakthroughs in our understanding of fragile X and X-linked disorders, intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder and other neurodevelopmental disorders. The main scientific sessions will highlight recent advances in fragile X and other X-linked and autosomal conditions with intellectual disability, syndromes caused by multiple ‘single gene’ defects, mechanisms of disease using animal and human cellular models, epigenetic signatures, and diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic strategies. The goal is to increase the international exposure of researchers and to provide a training venue for the next generation of clinicians and scientists.
20th Troina Meeting on Genetics of Neurodevelopmental Disorders
The Troina Meeting on Genetics of Neurodevelopmental Disorders focuses on the presentation of disease models and mechanisms, as well as translational initiatives. The compact meeting format has inspired many disease-related discoveries and creates a unique atmosphere where established group leaders interact with all students and postdocs.
Geroscience Los Angeles Meeting (GLAM)
The Geroscience Los Angeles Meeting (GLAM) is a trainee-focused conference on aging research hosted by the University of Southern California’s Leonard Davis School. GLAM was created as a response to traditional conferences and symposia, which tend to focus primarily on faculty presentations, giving only a relatively small place to trainees. At GLAM, other than one keynote address, all talks and poster presentations are given by trainees at various career stages, including undergraduate students, graduate students and postdoctoral trainees. Thus GLAM prioritizes empowering trainees by providing opportunities to present research, network and receive feedback. GLAM also includes a significant focus on the neurobiology of aging, ultimately aiming to advance geroscience training and to create new collaborations in Los Angeles and the greater Southern California scientific community.
Middle Eastern Systems and Computational Neuroscience Meeting
The Middle Eastern Systems and Computational Neuroscience meeting is a daylong symposium bringing together experimental and computational neuroscientists of Middle Eastern origin. To be held in San Diego prior to the 2025 Society for Neuroscience conference, the meeting will feature scientific talks and inclusive networking events designed to foster dialogue and collaboration. By creating space for scientists from across national and cultural divides to connect through shared intellectual interests, the meeting aims to advance systems-level brain research while building lasting personal and professional relationships rooted in curiosity, respect and mutual understanding.
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Meeting on Neuronal Circuits
The remarkable computational capacity of neuronal circuits remains a major unresolved problem in biology, serving as the core substrate linking genes and behavior. The magnitude of this problem requires communal efforts among scientists working on different organisms and systems. Creating such synergy served as a motivation for starting this biannual meeting series. Almost two decades later, the Cold Spring Harbor Neuronal Circuits meeting has emerged as a well established and highly regarded forum for the neuroscience community, one that offers an unusual interspecies flavor and a focus on circuit structure and function. By its very nature, research presented in the meeting is highly interdisciplinary as it brings together experimentalists, theorists and researchers from a range of quantitative disciplines.