Madhav Mani (Northwestern): AI+Science Schmidt Fellows Speaker Series

Organized by the University of Chicago’s Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellowship Program.

Agenda
4:00pm – 4:45pm:  Presentation
4:45pm – 5:00pm:  Q&A
5:00pm – 5:30pm: Reception

Meeting location
William Eckhardt Research Center. Room 401
5640 S Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637
Map It

Abstract: Inspired by the mysteries and structural connectivity of the brain, John Hopfield developed general class of learning networks, which are both used as a model to understand brain function and mimic its computational capabilities for an enormous diversity of uses. Here, I will use as inspiration Waddington’s metaphor for the robustness of evolved systems behaving as a ball rolling down in a canalized landscape that is held up by a complex network of genetic factors. I will present 3 recent investigations from our team (1, 2, and 3) where we leverage neural networks to study the origins and consequences of this powerful dynamical systems analogy in the context of the dynamics of cellular, embryonic, and MNIST digit differentiation.

Bio: Madhav Mani is Associate Professor of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics (ESAM) at Northwestern University. He is also an Adjunct Faculty Member of Molecular Biosciences and Founding Member of the Institute of Theoretical and Computational Soft Matter at Northwestern, and the Quantitative Biology Group Leader of the Northwestern Institute of Complex System (NICO). He is on the Leadership Council of the NSF-Simons Center for Quantitative Biology (CQuB) and is a Member of the Center for Physics of Evolving Systems at the University of Chicago.

Parking
Campus North Parking
5505 S Ellis Ave
Map It