Robert H. Wurtz Award & Lecture in Systems Neuroscience

Strategic Problem Solving in the Primate Brain

Mehrdad Jazayeri, Ph.D.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Award Presentation and Lecture
Reception to follow

About the Speaker

Dr. Jazayeri is an investigator and professor at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, where his lab studies how neural circuits give rise to the mind, combining cognitive science, neuroscience, and machine learning across humans, nonhuman primates, and artificial agents. He received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Sharif University of Technology, his master's degree in physiology from the University of Toronto, and his Ph.D. in neuroscience from New York University, studying how the brain decodes sensory signals to guide perceptual decisions. He did his postdoctoral work at the University of Washington as a Helen Hay Whitney Fellow, studying how the brain uses Bayesian computations to guide flexible timing behavior. He started his laboratory at MIT in 2013 as an assistant professor, became associate professor in 2018 and full professor in 2024, and joined HHMI as an Investigator in 2024. He has received a Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship, an NIH Outstanding Investigator Award, a McKnight Scholars Award, a Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship Award, a Sloan Research Fellowship, and multiple MIT teaching awards. Dr. Jazayeri's laboratory uses a combination of psychophysics, electrophysiology, and computational modeling to understand how neural dynamics in cortical and subcortical circuits support higher cognitive function. Most recently, his group has extended their work to study mental navigation, hierarchical reasoning, strategic problem solving, and social inference, with the goal of understanding how these cognitive functions are disrupted in neurological and psychiatric disorders.

About the Artwork

Each recipient of the Robert H. Wurtz Award is presented with a framed original mixed-media work of art from a series called "Pathways", created by Sheila Giolitti, an artist based in Norfolk, Virginia and represented locally by the Adah Rose Gallery. To learn more about her work, visit sheilagiolitti.com

For videocast link and more information, see: 

• The Robert H. Wurtz Award and Lecture in Systems Neuroscience is co-hosted by the NEI and the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. For more information visit the FNIH site: Robert H. Wurtz Award and Lecture in Systems Neuroscience
• NIH calendar event
• Information about visiting NIH
• Directions to the Lipsett Amphitheater once inside the Clinical Center (also called Building 10), NIH main campus, 9,000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD, 20892 
• For assistance, including the need for sign language interpretation or other reasonable accommodation to participate in this event please contact Ieva Macionyte at the email address below.