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Joana Soldado-Magraner (she/her)

Postdoctoral Research Associate, College of Engineering and Neuroscience Institute

Hometown: Valencia, Spain

1. Briefly describe the work you're doing as a postdoc at ºÚÁÏרÇø.

   I work at the intersection of computational neuroscience, machine learning, and neuroengineering. My research aims to understand the complex activity of neural populations in the prefrontal cortex, how that activity changes when we directly perturb this region, and how those perturbations affect the advanced cognitive processes it supports, such as working memory. To do this, I combine large-scale electrophysiology with statistical analysis and theoretical modeling. I use this understanding to guide the development of new neurotechnologies that can selectively modulate neural activity and brain function.

2. How did you develop an interest in this area?

   My undergrad was in Physics, which I loved because it tackles all these big questions about the universe: how it works and what it is made of. It pushes the frontiers of knowledge at the smallest scales, in the quantum world, as well as at the largest scales, asking what the fabric of space-time is, how far the cosmos reaches, when everything began, and how it will end.

    

   At some point I became fascinated by another big mystery, one I felt was deeply connected to the questions Physics tries to answer: how does our brain give rise to our most advanced kinds of thinking, the kind that lets us build abstract, complex theories to explain the universe itself?

    

   To chase that question, I switched fields and moved to Switzerland for a master’s in Neural Systems and Computation at ETH Zurich. The program brought together all the ingredients I thought were needed to answer the question: understanding biology through math, physics, computer science, and engineering. There I met Valerio Mante, a young professor taking a really interesting approach, using dynamical systems theory and recurrent neural network models to understand flexible cognitive processes in the prefrontal cortex. That was my first encounter with this fascinating brain region, and I fell in love with the idea of unraveling its computations using a dynamical systems perspective. I had already started my master’s thesis on another project, but I dropped it and switched to work with Valerio. The rest is history!

3. What are your academic and/or professional goals?

   I’d love to keep pursuing my current lines of work: understanding advanced cognition from a neural population perspective using theoretical modeling, and applying that understanding to develop novel neurotechnologies. I’d also like to expand in a new direction, using what we know about the brain to improve AI systems. The brain is an impressively robust, fault-tolerant, and energy-efficient machine that adapts easily to the real world. Current AI models are definitely not! I think borrowing from the brain could help make them more versatile, more robust, smaller, and far more energy efficient—and perhaps, more aligned with our goals, and our humanity.

    

   I’ve just accepted a faculty position at the University of València in Spain, where I’m from, and where my scientific career began. I’m really excited to start this new chapter and dive into all of these exciting research directions.

4. Tell us about a significant moment in your journey at ºÚÁÏרÇø so far.

   Besides all the cool research I’ve been lucky to be part of at ºÚÁÏרÇø, I’ve been involved in a side project I’m very proud of. Together with fellow postdocs from institutions across the US and Europe, and the organization TReND in Africa, I co-organize , a course in Computational Neuroscience and Machine Learning. It is an education initiative that gives young African students foundational training in these fields. Our goals are to build scientific capacity in computational neuroscience and ML across Africa, grow a network of computational neuroscientists on the continent, and offer that network ongoing career support and opportunities for collaboration.

    

   So far it’s been a great success, and the things we envisioned are really starting to come together! CMU’s College of Engineering wrote a about it when we ran our second edition in Kigali, Rwanda, in partnership with CMU-Africa on its beautiful campus. Our amazing partners at the Allen Institute, who train our students on their open datasets, also published a recent highlighting the impact of the initiative.

    

   None of this would have been possible without the incredible support I’ve had from CMU, and especially from my two advisors, Byron Yu and Matthew Smith. I can’t thank them enough for their continual support and for being so enthusiastic about this initiative.

5. How do you spend your time beyond academic work?

   I love getting lost in nature: hiking, skiing, and rock climbing in the mountains, or being immersed in the sea, paddle boarding and snorkeling, or trying out other water sports. I also love just hanging out with friends and family over good food and drinks, and cooking traditional dishes (yes, I can make paella, which comes from Valencia, by the way!). I also love reading about other scientific fields, philosophy, ethics, technology, and politics, and trying to make sense of the madness of the times we live in.