Kempner Institute at Harvard University
@kempnerinstitute.bsky.social
📤 620
📥 70
📝 271
The Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence at Harvard University.
🧠📈A new foundation model for
#neuroscience
! In the latest Deeper Learning blog,
@duranrin.bsky.social
and
@kanakarajanphd.bsky.social
describe their state-of-the-art POCO model, which accurately forecasts neural dynamics across individuals and species.
bit.ly/4afqx5A
#NeuroAI
#neuroscience
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Forecasting the Brain: Scalable Neural Prediction with POCO - Kempner Institute
Predicting future neural activity is a critical step toward achieving real-time, closed-loop neurotechnologies. To this end, we introduce POCO, a unified forecasting model trained on diverse calcium i...
https://bit.ly/4afqx5A
1 day ago
2
16
3
NEW in the Deeper Learning blog: a
#KempnerInstitute
team describes their recent preprint that shows the existence of “anytime” or “horizon-free” learning schedules: an effective alternative to cosine learning-rate schedules for LLM pretraining.
bit.ly/4qeXAg1
#AI
#ML
#LLMs
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Anytime Pretraining: Horizon-Free Learning-Rate Schedules with Weight Averaging - Kempner Institute
In this work, we show that horizon-free recipes with weight averaging can match cosine pretraining performance, and we prove that these schedulers achieve the optimal convergence rates of stochastic g...
https://bit.ly/4qeXAg1
3 days ago
1
3
1
In the latest
#KempnerInstitute
seminar series talk, Hanna Hajishirzi of
@uwcse.bsky.social
and
@ai2.bsky.social
introduces Olmo 3, a family of state-of-the-art, fully-open language and thinking models at the 7B and 32B parameter scales. Watch the talk ➡️
youtu.be/ei06Or9mwjY
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OLMo 3: Defining the Future of Open-Science AI with Model Flows with Hanna Hajishirzi
YouTube video by Kempner Institute at Harvard University
https://youtu.be/ei06Or9mwjY
4 days ago
0
5
0
NEW: Kempner Research Roundup: January 2026! 🧠 We’ve redesigned our monthly Research Roundup so you can learn about the latest research from the Kempner in a new, easier-to-read format. 📖 Read the Research Roundup here 🔗
bit.ly/4kiOSfs
5 days ago
0
1
0
🤖📊 NEW in the Deeper Learning blog:
@annhuang42.bsky.social
&
@kanakarajanphd.bsky.social
break down their recent work examining how
#RNNs
solve the same task in different ways, and why that matters. Joint work with
@satpreetsingh.bsky.social
&
@flavioh.bsky.social
bit.ly/4kj4fVd
#NeuroAI
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Measuring and Controlling Solution Degeneracy Across Task-Trained Recurrent Neural Networks - Kempner Institute
Despite reaching equal performance success when trained on the same task, artificial neural networks can develop dramatically different internal solutions, much like different students solving the sam...
https://bit.ly/4kj4fVd
5 days ago
0
19
5
reposted by
Kempner Institute at Harvard University
Colton Casto
6 days ago
Thanks to
@kempnerinstitute.bsky.social
for highlighting our new study! I'm excited to see where this research will take us in the years to come :)
add a skeleton here at some point
0
9
1
New in Neuron! A team including
#KempnerInstitute’s
@coltoncasto.bsky.social
&
@gretatuckute.bsky.social
maps the cerebellum's role beyond motor control as part of an extended language network.🧠🗣️ More here:
bit.ly/4rptQ13
#neuroscience
#fMRI
@gsas.harvard.edu
@evfedorenko.bsky.social
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New Study Sheds Light on the Brain’s “Extended Language Network” - Kempner Institute
For more than a century, scientists studying how the brain processes language have focused their attention on the cerebral cortex, specifically the left frontal and temporal lobes. But a new […]
https://bit.ly/4rptQ13
8 days ago
0
13
4
How can foundational models be optimized for real-world scientific discovery? 🧠 ⚛️Introducing PROTON: A new relational foundation model for
#neurology
from
@marinkazitnik.bsky.social
and
@ayushnoori.bsky.social
. More in the Deeper Learning Blog👉
bit.ly/4jYh1bD
#AI
#NeuroAI
#KempnerInstitute
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PROTON: A Relational Foundation Model for Neurological Discovery - Kempner Institute
Foundation models have transformed AI by scaling sequence-based learning, but many scientific problems are not naturally sequential. In neuroscience, insight depends on relationships across genes, cel...
https://bit.ly/4jYh1bD
13 days ago
1
4
1
In the latest
#KempnerInstitute
Seminar Series talk,
@kyunghyuncho.bsky.social
from New York University discussed how deep learning could be used to derive statistical and causal estimators we may not be able to design ourselves. Watch the talk👉
youtu.be/lz1iJWHLuwk
#AI
#DeepLearning
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https://bsky.app/profile/kyunghyuncho.bsky.social
18 days ago
0
0
0
📢Last call for applications! Applications for the
#KempnerInstitute
#postbac
program close on Feb 1. Don't miss the opportunity to receive support in preparing to apply to Ph.D. programs in
#intelligence
research. Apply today 👉
bit.ly/3LDj4Fd
@shamkakade.bsky.social
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Post-Baccalaureate Program - Kempner Institute
Offered in partnership with the Harvard Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (EDIB), the Kempner’s post-bacc program prepares recen...
https://bit.ly/3LDj4Fd
19 days ago
0
5
4
Happy 2nd science birthday to the
#KempnerInstitute
! 🧠In our 2nd full year we reached 420+ members, 350+ papers, 3,200+ event attendees, and 3M+ GPU hours. See our strides in
#intelligence
research! Read the 2025 Annual Report:
bit.ly/3LPSVmB
@shamkakade.bsky.social
@blsabatini.bsky.social
23 days ago
0
6
1
Congratulations to
#Harvard
faculty Nada Amin and Debora Marks (
@deboramarks.bsky.social
) with Noor Youssef, recipients of the 2026
#KempnerInstitute
Accelerator Awards! 🎊 Learn more about their exciting research in the field of
#intelligence
👉
bit.ly/49TVgWO
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Kempner Institute Announces 2026 Accelerator Award Recipients - Kempner Institute
The Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence at Harvard University is pleased to announce Nada Amin and Debora Marks as the recipients of the 2026 Kempner […]
https://bit.ly/49TVgWO
24 days ago
0
2
0
🚨Deadline approaching! Applications for the
#KempnerInstitute
#postbac
program close on February 1st! This 2-year program offers additional preparation for recent grads applying to Ph.D. programs in
#intelligence
research. 💡 Apply today 🔗
bit.ly/4aSAXdb
#AI
#NeuroAI
30 days ago
0
1
0
What if robots could imagine their next move? 🤯✨ Researchers at the
#KempnerInstitute
led by
@yilundu.bsky.social
have built a
#foundationmodel
that gives robots visual imagination—changing how they learn to move. 🔗 Blog:
bit.ly/4qftkCM
| 📰 News:
bit.ly/49FCHWf
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Large Video Planner: A New Foundation Model for General-Purpose Robots - Kempner Institute
Recent progress in AI has been driven by foundation models trained on internet-scale data. This has inspired a new wave of “robot foundation models” aimed at solving generalization, but such […]
https://bit.ly/4qftkCM
about 1 month ago
4
4
1
💡 Check out the
#KempnerInstitute
December Research Roundup to see pre-prints and papers published by the Kempner community in the last month of 2025. Here's to new
#research
for the New Year! 🎉 Discover more ➡️
bit.ly/45FIE31
#AI
#NeuroAI
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Research Roundup - Kempner Institute
The Kempner Research Roundup compiles publications, preprints and announcements authored by members of the Kempner Institute community. We publish the Roundup approximately three times each academic y...
https://bit.ly/45FIE31
about 1 month ago
0
1
0
📢 Attention recent graduates! Applications for the
#KempnerInstitute
#postbac
program are now open! A 2-year program offering additional preparation for recent grads applying to Ph.D. programs in
#intelligence
research.💡 Apply by February 1 ➡️
bit.ly/4aSAXdb
#AI
#NeuroAI
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Post-Baccalaureate Program - Kempner Institute
Offered in partnership with the Harvard Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (EDIB), the Kempner’s post-bacc program prepares recen...
https://bit.ly/4aSAXdb
about 2 months ago
0
3
1
Opportunity for @Harvard
#PhD
students 👀
#KempnerInstitute
grad fellowship applications are now open! Join our dynamic community of Ph.D. students studying
#intelligence
! Apply by Feb. 15. Learn more and apply ➡️
bit.ly/48ZAP9q
#AI
#NeuroAI
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Graduate Fellowship - Kempner Institute
Kempner Graduate Fellowships support a dynamic and diverse community of PhD students across a number of graduate programs at Harvard, seeding new and innovative scientific discoveries in labs across t...
https://bit.ly/48ZAP9q#AI
about 2 months ago
0
4
1
Wrapping up
#NeurIPS2025
with a final day of workshops! Check out the concluding day’s presentations from the
#KempnerInstitute
, which feature new insights and applications in
#AI
, machine learning and
#NeuroAI
.
2 months ago
0
2
0
#NeurIPS2025
workshops are underway! Today’s workshop presentations from the
#KempnerInstitute
cover a range topics, including the use of
#AI
in linguistics and the study of communication & sensing in electric fish.
#NeuroAI
2 months ago
0
2
1
Mid-conference momentum! 🔬📈 Today’s
#NeurIPS2025
presentations from the
#KempnerInstitute
showcase a wide variety of research projects at the frontiers of
#AI
and
#NeuroAI
.
@thomasfel.bsky.social
@andykeller.bsky.social
@gershbrain.bsky.social
@yilundu.bsky.social
@kanakarajanphd.bsky.social
2 months ago
1
3
1
Are you at
#NeurIPS2025
? Check out the
#KempnerInstitute’s
Day 2 presentations! 💡
#AI
#NeuroAI
@cpehlevan.bsky.social
@kanakarajanphd.bsky.social
@thomasfel.bsky.social
@andykeller.bsky.social
@binxuwang.bsky.social
@njw.fish
@yilundu.bsky.social
2 months ago
0
5
1
🚀 Kicking off Day 1 of
#NeurIPS2025
with a lineup of presentations from researchers at the
#KempnerInstitute
! Check out the full list of today’s Kempner presentations!
#AI
#NeuroAI
2 months ago
0
3
0
🧐 Wondering what the Kempner's been up to this month? Check out the latest articles and preprints from the
#KempnerInstitute
in our November research roundup! 📖 Discover the latest in our community's research: 👉
bit.ly/3Xt3K0g
#AI
#NeuroAI
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Research Roundup - Kempner Institute
The Kempner Research Roundup compiles publications, preprints and announcements authored by members of the Kempner Institute community. We publish the Roundup approximately three times each academic y...
https://bit.ly/3Xt3K0g
2 months ago
0
1
0
🎉Huge congratulations to
#KempnerInstitute
community members Jay Chooi,
@emmafinn314.bsky.social
, and Helen He on being named 2026 Rhodes Scholars! We're so proud to see their talent and leadership recognized on the world stage.🌍🎓 Read more➡️
bit.ly/4r9Mcnn
#RhodesScholar
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Three Kempner Undergraduates Awarded 2026 Rhodes Scholarships - Kempner Institute
Cambridge, MA—Three Kempner community members have been awarded prestigious Rhodes Scholarships for 2026 in recognition of their academic excellence, personal characteristics, and leadership. The scho...
https://bit.ly/4r9Mcnn
3 months ago
0
4
0
🚀Congratulations to
#KempnerInstitute
Investigator SueYeon Chung (
@sueyeonchung.bsky.social
)! Honored as one of
@thetransmitter.bsky.social
’s Rising Stars of Neuroscience 2025 for her outstanding achievements in the field.🌟 🔗
bit.ly/4i8uX1J
#AI
#NeuroAI
#Neuroscience
3 months ago
2
19
5
In the latest
#KempnerInstitute
Seminar Series talk, Kamalika Chaudhuri from FAIR @ Meta discussed the ways in which fundamental challenges of trustworthy AI currently manifest within LLMs. Watch the talk:
youtu.be/T2Cyv5YpNCs
#AI
#LLMs
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Trustworthy AI in Context with Kamalika Chaudhuri
YouTube video by Kempner Institute at Harvard University
https://youtu.be/T2Cyv5YpNCs
3 months ago
0
1
0
🐇Into the Rabbit Hull — Part 1: A Deep Dive into DINOv2🧠 Our latest Deeper Learning blog post is an
#interpretability
deep dive into one of today’s leading vision foundation models: DINOv2. 📖Read now:
bit.ly/4nNfq8D
Stay tuned — Part 2 coming soon.
#AI
#VLMs
#DINOv2
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Into the Rabbit Hull – Part I - Kempner Institute
This blog post offers an interpretability deep dive, examining the most important concepts emerging in one of today’s central vision foundation models, DINOv2. This blogpost is the first of a […]
https://bit.ly/4nNfq8D
3 months ago
1
11
2
From Cambridge to Johannesburg🌍— our “Building a Transformer from Scratch” workshop brought together students from the
#KempnerInstitute
and MIND Institute Wits University for collaboration, creativity and discovery! 🙌39 students, 8 facilitators, global
#AI
learning in action.
3 months ago
1
2
0
Congratulations to
#KempnerInstitute
community members
@msalbergo.bsky.social
and
@mweber.bsky.social
— recipients of
@schmidtsciences.bsky.social
AI2050 Fellowships! 🎉 Discover their innovative research shaping the future of AI 👉
bit.ly/47Do4R3
#AI
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Schmidt Sciences Awards Early Career Fellowships to Michael Albergo, Melanie Weber - Kempner Institute
Two Kempner Institute community members have received AI2050 Fellowships from Schmidt Sciences, a nonprofit organization aimed at accelerating scientific knowledge and breakthroughs. The AI2050 Progra...
https://bit.ly/47Do4R3
3 months ago
0
13
4
🧠💻Kempner researchers are using the new
#DGXSpark
to map how genes shape the brain — bringing the power of
#AI
straight to the bench and accelerating the pace of discovery.🚀
bit.ly/4ogQabW
@blsabatini.bsky.social
@harvardmed.bsky.social
@bethstevenslab.bsky.social
@bostonchildrens.bsky.social
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Decoding Epilepsy with the Power of AI - Kempner Institute
The Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence has launched an ambitious new project that brings together the frontiers of biology and computing to uncover how genetic […]
https://bit.ly/4ogQabW
3 months ago
0
2
1
🧠Discover what’s new at the
#KempnerInstitute
! Our October Research Roundup brings together the latest preprints and publications from our researchers. 🔗Explore more:
bit.ly/3LdVbUh
#Neuroscience
#AI
#Research
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Research Roundup - Kempner Institute
The Kempner Research Roundup compiles publications, preprints and announcements authored by members of the Kempner Institute community. We publish the Roundup approximately three times each academic y...
https://bit.ly/3LdVbUh
3 months ago
0
0
0
💡One training run. Many LLMs. Discover Boomerang Distillation — a new way to “recombine” large + small models into a whole family of LLMs. More in the Deeper Learning blog 👇
bit.ly/3WtMWWw
Post by Sara Kangaslahti, Jonathan Geuter, and Nihal Nayak
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Boomerang Distillation Enables Zero-Shot Model Size Interpolation - Kempner Institute
Real-world deployments of LLMs require models of different sizes to meet performance, latency, and cost targets. Yet pretraining every size is prohibitively expensive, leaving large gaps in size-perfo...
http://bit.ly/3WtMWWw
3 months ago
0
1
0
How do LLMs think about thinking? 🤔 In the latest Kempner Seminar Series talk,
@profsanjeevarora.bsky.social
(Princeton University and Princeton PLI) explores how “metacognition” shapes problem-solving in large language models. Watch here:
youtu.be/Tl48e0Euois
#KempnerInstitute
#AI
#LLM
#CS
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LLM Skills and Metacognition: Scaffolding for New Forms of Learning? with Sanjeev Arora
YouTube video by Kempner Institute at Harvard University
https://youtu.be/Tl48e0Euois
3 months ago
0
3
1
In the latest Kempner Seminar Series talk, Hannah Choi of Georgia Institute of Technology discusses recent work that investigates cortical mechanisms underlying predictive coding. Watch the talk:
youtu.be/9gf0lCu8tVc
#KempnerInstitute
#AI
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Predictive Coding with Cortical Cell Types and Connectivity with Hannah Choi
YouTube video by Kempner Institute at Harvard University
https://youtu.be/9gf0lCu8tVc
4 months ago
0
4
0
NEW in
#DeeperLearning
blog: Training quantized LLMs is tough -- the staircase loss landscape kills gradients everywhere. Meet LOTION🧴: a framework that replaces the quantized loss w/ a smoother objective that preserves the same global minima. 👉
bit.ly/47pg07v
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LOTION: Smoothing the Optimization Landscape for Quantized Training - Kempner Institute
Quantization and low-precision inference are necessary tools to continue leveraging scale for Large Language Model Performance. However, training models for quantized performance is challenging becaus...
https://bit.ly/47pg07v
4 months ago
1
1
0
In the latest Kempner Seminar Series talk, Leyla Isik of
@jhuartssciences.bsky.social
discusses researching social interaction perception using computational vision tools. Watch the talk:
youtu.be/YtVV55vjNDg
#KempnerInstitute
#CogSci
#Vision
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Seeing Social Interactions with Leyla Isik
YouTube video by Kempner Institute at Harvard University
https://youtu.be/YtVV55vjNDg
4 months ago
0
8
0
NEW in the
#DeeperLearning
blog! 🤖 ToolUniverse turns LLMs into “AI scientists,” tapping 600+ tools for experiments, modeling & discovery. 🔍 Read the post by Shanghua Gao, Richard Zhu, &
@marinkazitnik.bsky.social
:
bit.ly/46KHIvp
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From Models to Scientists: Building AI Agents for Scientific Discovery - Kempner Institute
ToolUniverse is a framework for developing AI agents for science, often referred to as “AI scientists.” It provides an environment where LLMs interact with more than six hundred scientific tools, […]
http://bit.ly/46KHIvp
4 months ago
0
0
0
What’s next in intelligence research? Meet our twenty fall 2025 KURE students. These undergraduates are pursuing original projects from tracing alignment faking in LLMs to modeling elephantfish communication. See the future of the field:
bit.ly/3KKUstb
#AI
#Neuroscience
#KempnerInstitute
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Kempner Institute Welcomes Fall 2025 Undergraduate Student Researchers - Kempner Institute
Cambridge, MA – The Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence at Harvard is pleased to announce the fall 2025 recipients of the Kempner Undergraduate Research Experience [...
http://bit.ly/3KKUstb
4 months ago
0
3
0
NEW on our
#DeeperLearning
blog People balance being kind vs. being honest — and
#LLMs
should too. New research shows training choices often favor informativeness over kindness, but prompting can induce sycophancy. Read more:
bit.ly/3Wqrtxl
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Using Cognitive Models to Reveal Value Trade-offs in Language Models - Kempner Institute
People’s actions and words are the result of a balance of different goals. The authors use a leading cognitive model of this value trade-off in polite speech to systematically examine […]
http://bit.ly/3Wqrtxl
4 months ago
1
12
4
In the latest Kempner Seminar Series talk, Tatsunori Hashimoto of
@stanfordnlp.bsky.social
discusses synthetic data and algorithmic approaches to data efficiency. Watch the talk:
youtu.be/pookfyF5Vu4
#KempnerInstitute
#AI
#scaling
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Back to the Future – Data Efficient Language Modeling with Tatsunori Hashimoto
YouTube video by Kempner Institute at Harvard University
https://youtu.be/pookfyF5Vu4
4 months ago
0
2
0
In the latest Kempner Seminar Series talk, Kevin Ellis of Cornell University discusses how an AI system could acquire, transfer, and communicate its knowledge of how things work. Watch the talk:
youtu.be/b0_BXShGgno
#KempnerInstitute
#AI
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Mental Programs in Humans and Machines with Kevin Ellis
YouTube video by Kempner Institute at Harvard University
https://youtu.be/b0_BXShGgno
4 months ago
0
2
0
⌛️ Deadline approaching! Applications for the
#KempnerInstitute
Research Fellowships close Oct. 1. We welcome postdocs exploring the foundations of
#intelligence
or applications of
#AI
to apply. 👉 Learn more & apply:
bit.ly/3UvpSpe
#LLMs
#NeuroAI
#ML
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Kempner Research Fellowship - Kempner Institute
The Kempner brings leading, early-stage postdoctoral scientists to Harvard to work on projects that advance the fundamental understanding of intelligence.
http://bit.ly/3UvpSpe
5 months ago
0
5
4
NEW:
#KempnerInstitute's
Naomi Saphra and her work on
#interpretability
featured in
@quantamagazine.bsky.social
! Read the article by
@benbenbrubaker.bsky.social
here:
t.co/40Tw1mmESe
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https://www.quantamagazine.org/to-understand-ai-watch-how-it-evolves-20250924/
https://t.co/40Tw1mmESe
5 months ago
0
2
0
News from the
#KempnerInstitute
! We’re thrilled to welcome Yonatan Belinkov (expert in
#NLP
) and Daphna Weinshall (expert in human & machine vision) as visiting scholars for the 2025–26 academic year. 📖 Read more:
bit.ly/47QkDID
#AI
#MachineVision
@boknilev.bsky.social
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Kempner Institute Welcomes Yonatan Belinkov and Daphna Weinshall as Visiting Scholars for the 2025-2026 Academic Year - Kempner Institute
The Kempner Institute is pleased to welcome Yonatan Belinkov and Daphna Weinshall as visiting scholars for the 2025-26 academic year. Both are preeminent researchers in the field of intelligence, help...
http://bit.ly/47QkDID
5 months ago
0
7
1
Happy
#OpenScienceWeek
! Explore
#KempnerInstitute
#OpenScience
resources: 📗HPC Handbook:
bit.ly/4gtUzFj
💻GitHub:
github.com/KempnerInsti...
💻HuggingFace:
huggingface.co/KempnerInsti...
📽️Talks on YouTube:
www.youtube.com/@KempnerInst...
5 months ago
0
2
0
reposted by
Kempner Institute at Harvard University
Kanaka Rajan
5 months ago
(1/8) New paper from our team! Yu Duan & Hamza Chaudhry introduce POCO, a tool for predicting brain activity at the cellular & network level during spontaneous behavior. Find out how we built POCO & how it changes neurobehavioral research 👇
arxiv.org/abs/2506.14957
1
53
14
reposted by
Kempner Institute at Harvard University
Yonatan Belinkov ✈️ COLM2025
5 months ago
@robinjia.bsky.social
speaking at
@kempnerinstitute.bsky.social
on Auditing, Dissecting, and Evaluating LLMs
0
1
1
In the first Kempner Seminar Series talk of the semester
@moiradillon.bsky.social
of New York University discusses the cognitive origins of spatial and social intelligence. Watch the talk:
youtu.be/YcgOj1wZVkg
#psychology
#cogsci
#KempnerInstitute
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Developing Intelligence: Insights from Spatial and Social Cognition with Moira Dillon
YouTube video by Kempner Institute at Harvard University
https://youtu.be/YcgOj1wZVkg
5 months ago
0
7
1
How can scientists apply efficient
#AI
tools to cognitive science? And what does it mean for how robots learn in new environments?
#KempnerInstitute
fellow Wilka Carvalho (
@cogscikid.bsky.social
l) + collaborators outline a new framework in 3 papers. Read more:
bit.ly/47Fk9F9
#NeuroAI
5 months ago
1
12
5
See the speakers for 2025-26
#KempnerInstitute
Seminar Series!
bit.ly/46xphKq
@moiradillon.bsky.social
@lisik.bsky.social
@profsanjeevarora.bsky.social
@kyunghyuncho.bsky.social
@scychan.bsky.social
@stellaathena.bsky.social
@judithfan.bsky.social
@engeltatiana.bsky.social
@zdeborova.bsky.social
5 months ago
0
10
3
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