The Telluride Workshop on Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Neuromorphic engineers design and fabricate artificial neural systems whose detailed architecture, design, and computational principles are based on those of biological nervous systems. Over the past 12 years, this research community has focused on the understanding of low-level sensory processing and systems infrastructure; efforts are now expanding to apply this knowledge and infrastructure to addressing higher-level problems in perception, cognition, and learning. The annual three-week intensive Workshop (held in Telluride, Colorado) consists of background lectures (from leading researchers in biological, cognitive, computational, engineering and learning sciences), practical tutorials (from state-of-the-art practitioners), hands-on projects (involving established researchers and newcomers/students), and special interest discussion groups (proposed by the workshop participants). For researchers in this community, this is the premier workshop for training students, initiating collaborations, and in-depth discussions on scientific issues. In this workshop and through the Institute for Neuromorphic Engineering (INE), the mission is to promote interaction between senior and junior researchers; to educate new members of the community; to introduce new enabling fields and applications to the community; to promote on-going collaborative activities emerging from the Workshop, and to promote a self-sustaining research field. Specific Goals for the period of 2007-2012: While there is no question that the Workshop has been very successful in its mission, three new challenges have been identified for the Workshop: 1) with a rapidly expanding community in both the U.S. and Europe, the Workshop experience needs to reach more people without increasing the size of the Workshop, 2) as larger and more challenging projects are tackled, more opportunities for group interactions are needed throughout the year, and 3) as more complex questions are asked at the system-level, more voices from cognitive neuroscience are needed. To meet these new challenges, a new version of the Workshop is envisioned with: 1) an expanded theme to focus on Perception, Cognition, and Learning, 2) an expanded constituency, educational mandate and research focus to incorporate members of the NSF Science of Learning Centers (SLC), 3) to create a two-part Workshop series (to allow yearlong collaborations and deeper investigation into large scale projects), one held in the U.S. and funded by U.S. resources and the other held in Europe and supported by European resources and 4) a modified Workshop schedule to emphasize training at the beginning of the workshop to provide a needed focus on education for both beginners and experts alike. The infusion of new researchers (from the SLCs) that focus on learning at multiple scales (from synapses to classroom) will provide the needed knowledge, new collaborations, and new perspectives to move the community towards cognitive-level neuromorphic systems. Broader impact of the Workshop to the public: The Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop will continue its tradition of public interaction. In particular, there will be a continuation of the educational program for K-12 students (based on neuromorphic/robotics design kits), undergraduate and graduate students (Workshop courses, new classes/lectures at participants? universities and REU), and to established researchers (exposure to new areas in the field). The workshop will also continue to educate the Telluride community with public lectures on the latest developments/issues in the field. Recruitment of minorities and women to the field will be continue by organizing lectures at various Universities, particularly HBCUs (Morgan State U., MD, Lincoln U., PA, Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA, and others). By sending presenters to institutions local to their home universities, minimal funding will be required and provide the most likely connections for future collaborations. The Institute for Neuromorphic Engineering, currently housed at the University of Maryland (College Park, MD), will arrange the logistics. The lectures and other teaching materials developed at the workshop will also be made available to all interested parties and posted on the INE website. Lastly, the workshop will continue to develop the researchers and leaders for the emerging field of biologically-inspired systems, cognitive/learning systems, robotics and implantable electronics. Various agencies and governments have recognized that smart devices (such as interactive humanoid robots) that mimic living organisms will have great academic and commercial value in future.
Neuromorphic Engineering seeks to bring new computational concepts from neurobiology and ethology to engineering systems in both algorithms and computational devices. This field involves researchers from both scientific and engineering disciplines. The Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop is an annual 3-week intensive workshop in July held in the town of Telluride, CO that brings together researchers in Neuromorphic Engineering from around the world to share results and techniques, focus the community on challenge problems, educate newcomers in Neuromorphic Engineering, nurturing collaborations, and identifying/coordinating international funding opportunities. This workshop specializes in hands-on involvement in hardware projects that lead to future collaborations and, in some cases, manuscripts. During the five years of the grant we have made a change in the workshop from a broad coverage of neuromorphic engineering topics to an emphasis on tackling cognitive-level problems. This change has had a major effect on the research questions being asked as well as on some of the techniques being employed in projects. In addition, we modified the workshop’s organizational structure to be more dynamic, allowing members of the research community to propose and lead a focused topic/project area along with invited speakers. This change has allowed more members of the community to guide the workshop and brought many more newcomers into the workshop. The Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop has long been, and continues to be, the flagship meeting for Neuromorphic Engineering in the U.S., continuing the tradition of education and inspiration for future research in this area. Our workshop has inspired a European workshop on the same topic, the CapoCaccia Workshop on Neuromorphic Engineering (late May in CapoCaccia, Sardinia, Italy), that operates in a similar fashion, with a focus on more advanced participants and EU funding-based group projects. There are currently a few additional efforts to create a similar workshop in Asia timed for the month of January. With 60-70 participants each year, approximately 40% are completely new to the Workshop. With the support from this grant (including established researchers), we have served over 150 individuals.
