Project Prakash: Merging Science with Service

Center for Educational Neuroscience Applications (CENA) Colloquium: 

PROJECT PRAKASH: MERGING SCIENCE WITH SERVICE 

Presented by: Pawan Sinha

Wednesday, April 24 at 4:00 p.m.

Free for Members & Non Members

Join us on the Zoom link:

https://tinyurl.com/4eb7xfcx

Description:

Expanding human knowledge can be tied intrinsically to betterment of the human condition. As scientists, we hope to be able to merge our personal desire to be good Samaritans with our professional desire to be good researchers. This aspiration to braid science and service can only come to fruition, however, if we actively identify opportunities that mesh the two—the kind of science that necessitates service. I shall describe an attempt at creating such an initiative. Named ‘Project Prakash’, this work has allowed us to bring light into the lives of blind children, while also illuminating fundamental questions regarding learning and plasticity in the brain. Center for Educational Neuroscience Applications (CENA) Colloquium: Pawan Sinha, Professor of Neuroscience.

About the Presenter:

Pawan Sinha is a tenured professor of vision and computational neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT and founder of Project Prakash. Prof. Sinha’s research interests span neuroscience, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and public health. Using a combination of experimental and computational modeling techniques, research in his laboratory focuses on understanding how the human brain learns to interpret and recognize complex sensory signals. Prof. Sinha is a recipient of numerous awards, including the Pisart Vision Award from the Lighthouse Guild, the inaugural Asia Game Changers Award, the PECASE – US Government’s highest award for young scientists, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship in Neuroscience.