Our group is looking for one summer intern as part of the 2019 Allen Institute summer internship program. Here is a link to the online application portal. Application deadline is January 30, 2019.

Key requirements:

  • Must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident
  • Must be enrolled in an undergraduate or Master’s degree program, and returning to school for the fall semester

Project description:

Machine learning models for cell type analysis

How can we identify ‘similar’ cells, and distinguish them from ‘different’ ones? Can we design ways to group cells into biologically meaningful categories? Could such a categorization help us understand more about how the brain works? We are seeking a thoughtful intern to address these questions in a data-driven manner.

Recent advances in experimental techniques have enabled neuroscientists to characterize individual brain cells based on their genetic, electrophysiological, and morphological properties at unprecedented resolution and scale. A key challenge is to devise computational methods to discover statistical patterns in such rich, high-dimensional, and multimodal datasets. To this end, we are developing machine learning models to parse gene expression data, electrophysiological time-series, and light microscopy images at the single cell level for large samples of brain cells. The intern will have the opportunity to work with unique datasets produced at the Allen Institute, and contribute to computational research as part of our team.

Visit celltypes.brain-map.org to learn more about the datasets.