Neural Coding and Dynamics
Ila Fiete builds tools and mathematical models to expand our knowledge of the brain’s computations. Specifically, her lab focuses on how the brain develops and reshapes its neural connections to perform high-level computations, like those involved in memory and learning. The Fiete lab applies cutting-edge theoretical and quantitative methods—wielding the vast capabilities of computational models, informed by mathematics, machine learning, and physics—digging deeper into how the brain represents and manipulates information. Through these strategies, Fiete hopes to shed new light onto the neural ensembles behind learning, integration of new information, inference-making, and spatial navigation.
Her lab’s findings are pushing the frontiers of neuroscience—while advancing the utility of computational tools in this space—and are building a more robust understanding of complex brain processes.
Biography
Ila Fiete is a professor of brain and cognitive sciences, associate member of the McGovern Institute, and director of the K. Lisa Yang ICoN Center at MIT. Fiete earned a BS in mathematics and physics at the University of Michigan, obtaining her PhD in physics at Harvard University in 2004. She conducted her postdoctoral work at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara while she was also a visiting member of the Center for Theoretical Biophysics at the University of California, San Diego. Fiete subsequently spent two years at Caltech as a Broad Fellow in brain circuitry, then joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin before coming to MIT in 2019.
Honors and Awards
Honors
- 2015 – Advisory Board Member, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics
Awards
- 2022 – Swartz Prize for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience, Society for Neuroscience
- 2016 – Faculty Scholar Award, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- 2013 – Teaching Excellence Award, College of Natural Sciences, University of Texas at Austin
- 2013 – Young Investigator Award, Office of Naval Research
- 2011 – Scholar Award, McKnight Foundation
- 2010 – Searle Scholar, Searle Scholars Program
