The Science of Reading Minds: Analyzing Functional Brain Images
The Mehta Family School of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence at IIT Guwahati and IIT Roorkee hosted a successful first lecture in the Mehta Family Foundation Lecture Series. With over 100 attendees, the lecture explored exciting advancements in the field of neuronal response to naturalistic visual stimuli.
The speaker was Professor Ananth Grama the Samuel Conte Professor of Computer Science at Purdue University. He also serves as Associate Director of the Center for Science of Information, a Science and Technology Center of the National Science Foundation. His primary research interests lie in parallel and distributed systems, large-scale data analytics, design and simulation, and applications. Ananth’s work has been recognized through several awards, including the National Science Foundation CAREER award (1998), Purdue University Faculty Scholar (2002) and Distinguished Research Award (2018), Fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS) (2014), Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Minnesota (2015), and Amazon Research Award (2021).


The lecture covered two cutting-edge methods, based on archetypal analysis and deep learning, to uncover interpretable representations of fMRI response, predict objects in visual frames, and reconstruct visual inputs. Additionally, the lecture delved into computational methods to identify the unique functional connectomes of individuals.
The lecture concluded with a discussion of the importance and challenges of problems in neuroimage analysis. The audience had the opportunity to ask questions and engage in a lively open discussion.
The Mehta Family Foundation Lecture Series is an excellent platform for sharing and learning about the latest developments in the field of data science and artificial intelligence.
The text in the second column was edited by ChatGPT Jan 30 Version