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March 16, 2015
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Date:06TuesdayJanuary 2026Lecture
Stability and change in the hippocampal place representation system
More information Time All dayLocation Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture HallLecturer Prof. Dori Derdikman Organizer Department of Brain SciencesContact Abstract Show full text abstract about Memory formation and maintenance involve a constant tension ...» Memory formation and maintenance involve a constant tension between stability andchange. On one hand, stable representations are essential for preserving past experiences.On the other hand, memories must remain flexible to incorporate new information andreflect the evolving world. Thus, while memory resists interference to maintain invariance, itmust also reorganize to enhance efficiency and adapt to novel experiences.In this lecture, I will discuss one to three studies examining this balance within thehippocampal spatial representation system. First, regarding representational drift, spatialrepresentations in the hippocampus gradually change with experience. Our findings suggestthat such changes are driven more by ongoing experience than by forgetting. Second, inexploring environmental mapping, we find that the subiculum encodes differently shapedrooms with strikingly similar activity patterns, hinting at an invariant, latent representation ofspatial structure. Third, we investigate a flashbulb memory–like effect, observingpronounced hippocampal activity changes following salient life events in mice.Together, these projects illustrate how the hippocampus negotiates the trade-off betweenpreserving established memories and accommodating new experiences. -
Date:06TuesdayJanuary 2026Lecture
Foundations of Computer Science Seminar
More information Time 12:15 - 13:30Title Exploiting Computationally Bounded Adversaries in New DomainsLocation Jacob Ziskind Building
Room 155 - חדר 155Lecturer Jad Silbak
MITOrganizer Department of Computer Science and Applied MathematicsContact Abstract Show full text abstract about A central insight of modern cryptography is that to guarante...» A central insight of modern cryptography is that to guarantee the security and integrity of a task, it often suffices to defend against computationally bounded adversaries. This perspective aligns with how we model real world attackers and can enable outcomes that are provably impossible against unbounded adversaries. Although this idea has long been a driving force in cryptography and complexity theory, it has not been fully exploited in several natural and fundamental problems that have traditionally been studied in the unbounded adversary model.
In this talk, we show that adopting this computational perspective enables us to surpass information theoretic limits in three classic settings: communication, randomness, and privacy.
Communication: We construct efficient error correcting codes for computationally bounded adversaries that achieve information rates provably higher than those possible against unbounded adversaries.
Randomness: While seedless deterministic extraction is impossible for general sources, we show that it is possible to deterministically extract and condense randomness from low-entropy efficiently samplable sources.
Privacy: We consider two party differential privacy and show that achieving accuracy beyond information theoretic limits is tightly connected to cryptographic power, yielding a characterization of the computational assumptions that are necessary. -
Date:06TuesdayJanuary 2026Lecture
PES Department Seminar- Prof.Tal Dagan
More information Time 15:33 - 16:33Title Multilevel drift and selection in the evolution of prokaryotic plasmidsLocation Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Plant and Environmental Sciences
191Lecturer Prof. Tal Dagan -
Date:07WednesdayJanuary 2026Lecture
Deciphering molecular heterogeneity in tumors with increased EGFR expression towards -individualized treatments
More information Time 14:00 - 15:00Location Max and Lillian Candiotty Building
AuditoriumLecturer Dr. Maria Jubran-Khoury, DMD, PhD Organizer Dwek Institute for Cancer Therapy Research -
Date:07WednesdayJanuary 2026Lecture
PhD Defense Seminar- Herschel Mehlman
More information Time 14:00 - 15:00Title Indolics: From Natural Pigments to Psychedelics; gene identification, verification and genetic engineeringLocation Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Plant and Environmental Sciences
290Contact -
Date:08ThursdayJanuary 2026Lecture
New insights from spatial Metabolomics
More information Time 09:00 - 10:00Location Candiotty AuditoriumLecturer Dr. Uwe Heinig Organizer Department of Life Sciences Core Facilities -
Date:08ThursdayJanuary 2026Colloquia
Physics Colloquium
More information Time 11:15 - 12:30Title זֶה סַבּוֹן, סוֹב סוֹב סוֹב: Spinning a tale about liquid crystalsLocation Weissman AuditoriumLecturer Prof. Randall D. Kamien Organizer Faculty of PhysicsAbstract Show full text abstract about The discovery of the cholesteric ushered in the study of liq...» The discovery of the cholesteric ushered in the study of liquid crystalline phases and phenomena. As a structure periodic on the micron length scale, the cholesteric acts as a diffraction grating, affording a labradorescent splendor to the casual observer. While these discoveries were being made, Maxwell developed the theory of canal surfaces; surfaces swept out by a sphere of varying radius moving along an arbitrary path. I will use a new observation of cholesteric droplets to explain the connection between canal surfaces, focal conic domains, and Apollonian packing. The power of geometric thinking will be highlighted. -
Date:08ThursdayJanuary 2026Lecture
Vision and AI
More information Time 12:15 - 13:15Title Model circuits interpretability, and the road to scale it upLocation Jacob Ziskind Building
Lecture Hall - Room 1 - אולם הרצאות חדר 1Lecturer Yaniv Nikankin
TechnionOrganizer Department of Computer Science and Applied MathematicsContact Abstract Show full text abstract about In this talk, we will explore circuit analysis for interpret...» In this talk, we will explore circuit analysis for interpreting neural network models. After some background on the paradigm and techniques of circuit analysis, I'll present two (and a half) research studies demonstrating the breadth of these interpretability methods.
We will explore how this paradigm can help gain scientific insights into how neural network models operate, exemplified in the first work ("Arithmetic without Algorithms", https://technion-cs-nlp.github.io/llm-arithmetic-heuristics) where we use circuit analysis to reveal how language models solve arithmetic prompts. We will also show that circuit analysis can reveal findings on neural network models and help fix existing problems in them --- specifically targeting the issue of poor performance of VLMs on visual tasks compared to equivalent textual tasks (done in the work "Same Task, Different Circuits", https://technion-cs-nlp.github.io/vlm-circuits-analysis). Lastly, if time permits, we will discuss some current directions for future and ongoing work, mainly on scaling circuit analysis to complex tasks.
Bio:
Yaniv Nikankin is a PhD student at the Technion, working with Yonatan Belinkov. His work focuses on interpretability of neural networks, with a recent focus on scaling to analysis of long-form complex tasks. He is particularly excited about cross-domain applications of interpretability in scientific fields, for goals such as better understanding of scientific foundation models such as pLMs. Yaniv is a recipient of the Israeli Higher Education (VATAT) fellowship. -
Date:08ThursdayJanuary 2026Lecture
Geometric Functional Analysis and Probability Seminar
More information Time 13:30 - 14:30Title TBDLocation Jacob Ziskind Building
Room 155 - חדר 155Lecturer Adva Mond
King's CollegeOrganizer Faculty of Mathematics and Computer ScienceContact -
Date:08ThursdayJanuary 2026Lecture
Challenges in CAR T cell therapy in hematologic malignancies and beyond
More information Time 14:00 - 15:00Location Candiotty
AuditoriumLecturer Prof. Elad Jacoby Organizer Dwek Institute for Cancer Therapy Research -
Date:10SaturdayJanuary 202601ThursdayJanuary 2026Lecture
Vision and AI
More information Time 12:15 - 13:15Title Bridging Generative Models and Visual CommunicationLocation Jacob Ziskind Building
Lecture Hall - Room 1 - אולם הרצאות חדר 1Lecturer Yael Vinker
MITOrganizer Department of Computer Science and Applied MathematicsContact Abstract Show full text abstract about From rough sketches that spark ideas to polished illustratio...» From rough sketches that spark ideas to polished illustrations that explain complex concepts, visual communication is central to how humans think, create, and share knowledge. Yet despite major advances in generative AI, we are still far from models that can reason and communicate through visual forms.
I will present my work on bridging generative models and visual communication, focusing on three complementary domains: (1) algorithms for generating and understanding sketches, (2) systems that support exploratory visual creation beyond one-shot generation, and (3) methods for producing editable, parametric images for design applications.
These domains pose unique challenges: they are inherently data-scarce and rely on representations that go beyond pixel-based images commonly used in standard models. I will show how the rich priors of vision-language models can be leveraged to address these challenges through novel optimization objectives and regularization techniques that connect their learned features with the specialized representations required for visual communication.
Looking ahead, this research lays the foundation for general-purpose visual communication technologies: intelligent systems that collaborate with humans in visual domains, enhancing how we design, learn, and exchange knowledge.
Bio:
Yael Vinker is a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT CSAIL, working with Prof. Antonio Torralba. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Tel Aviv University, advised by Profs. Daniel Cohen-Or and Ariel Shamir. Her research spans computer graphics, computer vision, and machine learning, with a focus on generative models for visual communication. Her work has been recognized with two Best Paper Awards (SIGGRAPH 2022, SIGGRAPH Asia 2023) and a Best Paper Honorable Mention (SIGGRAPH 2023). She was selected as an MIT EECS Rising Star (2024) and received the Blavatnik Prize for Outstanding Israeli Doctoral Students in Computer Science (2024) as well as the VATAT Ph.D. Fellowship. -
Date:10SaturdayJanuary 202601ThursdayJanuary 2026Lecture
Vision and AI
More information Time 12:15 - 13:15Title Bridging Generative Models and Visual CommunicationLocation Jacob Ziskind Building
Lecture Hall - Room 1 - אולם הרצאות חדר 1Lecturer Yael Vinker
MITOrganizer Department of Computer Science and Applied MathematicsContact Abstract Show full text abstract about From rough sketches that spark ideas to polished illustratio...» From rough sketches that spark ideas to polished illustrations that explain complex concepts, visual communication is central to how humans think, create, and share knowledge. Yet despite major advances in generative AI, we are still far from models that can reason and communicate through visual forms.
I will present my work on bridging generative models and visual communication, focusing on three complementary domains: (1) algorithms for generating and understanding sketches, (2) systems that support exploratory visual creation beyond one-shot generation, and (3) methods for producing editable, parametric images for design applications.
These domains pose unique challenges: they are inherently data-scarce and rely on representations that go beyond pixel-based images commonly used in standard models. I will show how the rich priors of vision-language models can be leveraged to address these challenges through novel optimization objectives and regularization techniques that connect their learned features with the specialized representations required for visual communication.
Looking ahead, this research lays the foundation for general-purpose visual communication technologies: intelligent systems that collaborate with humans in visual domains, enhancing how we design, learn, and exchange knowledge.
Bio:
Yael Vinker is a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT CSAIL, working with Prof. Antonio Torralba. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Tel Aviv University, advised by Profs. Daniel Cohen-Or and Ariel Shamir. Her research spans computer graphics, computer vision, and machine learning, with a focus on generative models for visual communication. Her work has been recognized with two Best Paper Awards (SIGGRAPH 2022, SIGGRAPH Asia 2023) and a Best Paper Honorable Mention (SIGGRAPH 2023). She was selected as an MIT EECS Rising Star (2024) and received the Blavatnik Prize for Outstanding Israeli Doctoral Students in Computer Science (2024) as well as the VATAT Ph.D. Fellowship. -
Date:11SundayJanuary 202612MondayJanuary 2026Conference
2nd Bridges of Science Symposium
More information Time 08:00 - 08:00Title 2nd Bridges of Science SymposiumLocation The David Lopatie Conference CentreChairperson Neta Regev-RudzkiHomepage Contact -
Date:11SundayJanuary 2026Lecture
The Clore Center for Biological Physics
More information Time 13:15 - 14:30Title Structure in ProsodyLocation Nella and Leon Benoziyo Physics LibraryLecturer Prof. David Biron
Lunch at 12:45Contact Abstract Show full text abstract about Prosody, by and large, is the variation in pitch, timing, an...» Prosody, by and large, is the variation in pitch, timing, and loudness that gives speech its musical quality. It is pivotal in human communication, yet its structure and meaning remain subjects of ongoing research. I will describe a data-driven model for English prosody based on large-scale analysis of spontaneous conversations. As a first step, we identified approximately 200 discernible prosodic patterns, i.e., pitch contours typically spanning 1-4 words that we view as building blocks of a prosodic vocabulary, and outlined their properties and communicative meanings. Next, we revealed a Markovian logic, akin to a syntax, affecting how these elementary building blocks concatenate into coherent utterances. We further identified distinct compound functions associated with pairs of consecutive patterns and demonstrated that this Markovian structure is significantly more prevalent in spontaneous prosody compared to scripted speech. These findings offer insights into the underlying mechanisms of conversational prosody, empirically informing and refining existing theoretical concepts in linguistics. The methodology of combining unsupervised clustering analysis of large speech datasets with careful manual annotation could guide future research aimed at refining our model and expanding it to other languages. -
Date:12MondayJanuary 2026Lecture
Special Guest Seminar
More information Time 10:00 - 11:00Title ?How Do Extraembryonic Tissues Shape DevelopmentLocation Max and Lillian Candiotty Building
AuditoriumLecturer Dr. Ron Hadas Organizer Department of Immunology and Regenerative BiologyContact -
Date:12MondayJanuary 2026Colloquia
Chemistry colloquium
More information Time 11:00 - 12:15Location Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture HallLecturer Prof. Dongyuan Zhao Homepage -
Date:13TuesdayJanuary 2026Lecture
Decoding Enzyme Dynamics: Microsecond Motions and Their Role in Catalysis
More information Time 11:15 - 12:15Location Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture HallLecturer Dr. David Scheerer Organizer Department of Chemical and Structural Biology -
Date:13TuesdayJanuary 2026Lecture
Special Clore Center for Biological Physics
More information Time 13:30 - 14:30Title Network Resilience Theory of AgingLocation Nella and Leon Benoziyo Physics LibraryLecturer Dr. Bnaya Gross
Lunch at 12:45Contact Abstract Show full text abstract about Two major theories compete to explain the origin of aging. T...» Two major theories compete to explain the origin of aging. The first, proposed by Leo Szilard in 1959, attributes aging to DNA damage. The second, articulated by Robin Holliday in the 1980s, emphasizes epigenetic alterations. While both reveal plausible molecular origins of aging, they leave important puzzles unresolved. First, mutation and epimutation burdens increase linearly with age, whereas aging phenotypes exhibit strongly nonlinear behavior. Second, key aging phenotypes cannot be traced to specific genetic or epigenetic changes; instead, they emerge collectively from their cumulative effects on cellular function.In this talk, I will present a network resilience theory of aging that resolves these puzzles. Network resilience is formalized as the ability of a network to sustain its basic functions under changes in its topology and dynamical variables. Our theory conceptualizes aging as a progressive loss of network resilience as cells approach a novel critical mutation-epigenetic line. We identify two regimes of cellular stability, with young cells remaining resilient while older cells exhibit increased susceptibility. Using GTEx data and numerical simulations, we link transcriptional noise to cellular susceptibility and reproduce delayed immune activation observed in aging. Overall, our theory offers a novel perspective on aging based on resilience and critical phenomena. -
Date:14WednesdayJanuary 2026Lecture
Special Guest Seminar
More information Time 11:00 - 12:00Title Host-Listeria crosstalk: a tale of invasion and evasionLocation Max and Lillian Candiotty Building
AuditoriumLecturer Dr. Marc Lecuit Organizer Department of Immunology and Regenerative BiologyContact -
Date:15ThursdayJanuary 2026Lecture
Molecular Mechanisms of Synapse and Myelin Development, Plasticity, and Repair
More information Time 10:00 - 11:00Title Insights from the inner ear and prefrontal cortexLocation Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research
Botnar AuditoriumLecturer Gabriel Corfas Organizer Department of Molecular NeuroscienceAbstract Show full text abstract about Glial cells are increasingly recognized as active regulators...» Glial cells are increasingly recognized as active regulators of neural circuit development, plasticity, and repair. This seminar will highlight how supporting cells in the inner ear and myelinating glia in auditory and prefrontal circuits control circuit function. Our work in the inner ear shows how glia influence hearing, in particular the recently described “hidden hearing loss”, while our studies of juvenile social isolation demonstrate our early-life experience reshapes prefrontal myelination, neuronal function, and behavior through epigenetic mechanisms. Together, these findings point to glia‑mediated synaptic and myelin changes as key, complementary pathways through which development, experience, and aging impact circuit performance.