Speaker: Gonzalo G. de Polavieja is a Senior Principal Investigator leading the Collective Behavior Lab at Champalimaud Research in Lisbon, and co-founder of Algebraic.ai. He received a BSc in Science from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (1992), followed by an FPU research fellowship at the same institution. He completed his DPhil in Physical Sciences as a Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Oxford in 1999 under the supervision of Mark S. Child, with thesis examiners Michael V. Berry and David Manolopoulos. He then pursued postdoctoral research as a Welcome Trust Fellow at the University of Cambridge under Simon Laughlin.

Dr. de Polavieja began his independent career as a Junior Principal Investigator (Ramon & Cajal Fellow) in the Department of Theoretical Physics at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (2003–2007). He later became a tenured Scientist (Científico Titular) at the Cajal Institute, CSIC (2008–2014), before assuming his current role as Senior Principal Investigator at the Champalimaud Foundation in 2014. In 2018, he co-founded Algebraic AI, where he serves as Co-Managing Director.

His research focuses on machine intelligence, quantitative behavior, collective behavior, and computational biology. He has made significant contributions to both physics and neuroscience, with work spanning geometric phase theory, neural coding, collective decision-making, and the development of AI tools for tracking and analyzing animal behavior. He has published extensively, with over 150 papers (including in Nature Methods, Nature Neuroscience, PNAS, etc.) and an h-index of 32 (Google Scholar) and has delivered numerous invited lectures worldwide.

Dr. de Polavieja has received several prestigious grants and awards, including funding from the European Commission (H2020), the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT), and the Welcome Trust. He has supervised 12 PhD theses and is a reviewer for leading journals in neuroscience, AI, and physics. He is also actively involved in organizing international conferences, including co-directing FENS Cajal Courses on Machine Learning and Quantitative Behavior.

Date: September 4, 2025

Time: 09:00-11:00 am

Location: Room 310, Comprehensive Building, Baotuquan Campus, Shandong University

Sponsor: School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shandong University

For more information, please visit:

https://www.view.sdu.edu.cn/info/1020/205741.htm