August 18, 1998 - August 23, 1998

UW Summer Institute 1998

Location: Seattle and San Juan Island, Washington, USA

Venue: University of Washington, and
Friday Harbor Laboratories
Seattle, Washington

Intelligent Systems: Biological and Computational Perspectives

The 1998 MSR/UW Summer Institute will explore conceptual relationships and synergies between biological and computational perspectives on intelligent systems. The Institute will bring together scientists investigating intelligent systems from a variety of subdisciplines of the biological and computational sciences, including integrative and comparative biology, neuroscience, neuroethology, artificial intelligence, decision science, computational neuroscience, computational theory, computer engineering, operating systems, and networking and communications. The meeting goals are (1) to discuss principles, architectures, and unifying abstractions that may underlie intelligent systems, (2) to understand how findings elucidated by biologists can assist computer scientists and engineers in the design of robust and flexible computing systems, and (3) to investigate how results and insights developed by computer scientists can help biologists to understand the neurophysiological foundations of learning and intelligent behavior. The program will incorporate presentations, panel discussions, breakout group sessions, and side trips in a relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere. The program will begin at the University of Washington in Seattle, from Tuesday, August 18th through Thursday, August 20. Invitees will then be flown by seaplane to Friday Harbor Laboratories on San Juan Island, where laboratory sessions involving diverse organisms will augment the discussions. The program will conclude Saturday, August 22.

Background on the MSR/UW Summer Institute

The MSR/UW Summer Institute series was created by the Computer Science and Engineering Department of the University of Washington and Microsoft Research with the goal of bringing leading researchers to Seattle for summer programs to collaborate on key topics in computer science. The series began in 1997 with the successful MSR/UW Summer Institute in Datamining.

The 1998 MSR/UW Summer Institute on Intelligent Systems: Biological and Computational Perspectives has its roots in recent dialog between invertebrate biologists and computer scientists. In August 1997, Dennis Willows invited Eric Horvitz to Friday Harbor Laboratories to give a talk on the relationships between computational models for decision making under uncertainty and biological systems. The seminar was successful in stimulating additional interest, ongoing discussions, and thoughts about organizing another meeting. Chris Diorio arrived at the University of Washington in the Fall of 1997 and joined Dennis and Eric in discussions about the feasibility of organizing a meeting. With the assistance of Ed Lazowska, Chairman of the UW Computer Science and Engineering Department and Dan Ling, Director of Research at the Redmond Campus of Microsoft Research, a decision was made to focus the 1998 MSR/UW Summer Institute on key questions about intelligent systems.

Organizers

Chris Diorio, University of Washington
Eric Horvitz, Microsoft Research
Dennis Willows, University of Washington