Description:

Thursday / CS Distinguished Lecture
November 2nd / 12:00 PM
Hybrid / Mudd 3514

Zoom Link:https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/94978708286?pwd=TmR0aHd0Ky9NbWVDdEQzeTdhSVVWQT09

Panopto Link: https://northwestern.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=cb0806e4-b9a4-4272-a8ff-b0a1012bddbc 

Speaker
Abhishek Bhattacharjee

Title
Computer Architectures for Neural Interfaces

Abstract

Neural interfaces will help us treat brain disorders, augment the healthy brain, and shed light on how the brain as an organ gives rise to the mind. Delivering on this promise requires the design of computer systems that delicately balance the tight power, latency, and bandwidth trade-offs needed to decode brain activity, stimulate biological neurons, and control assistive devices most effectively.

This talk presents my group's design of a standardized and general computer architecture for future brain interfacing. Our design enables the treatment of several neurological disorders (most notably, epilepsy and movement disorders) and lays the groundwork for brain interfacing techniques that can help augment cognitive control and decision-making in the healthy brain.

Central to our design is end-to-end hardware acceleration, from the microarchitectural to the distributed system level. Key insights are undergirded via detailed physical synthesis models and chip tape-outs in a 12nm CMOS process.

Biography
Abhishek Bhattacharjee is a computer architect and a Professor of Computer Science at Yale University. His group's work has spanned the areas of memory management, the hardware/software interface, and most recently, computer systems for the brain sciences. Abhishek's work on address translation has been adopted in billions of real-world microprocessors and operating systems, for which he was the recipient of the 2023 ACM SIGARCH Maurice Wilkes Award.

Research Interests/Area
Computer Architecture, Operating Systems, Compilers, Brain Sciences