Rui Ponte Costa
Group Leader
rui.costa@dpag.ox.ac.ukRui leads the Neural & Machine Learning group that leverages AI principles to develop a new generation of computational models of learning in the brain. In particular, the group focuses on understanding how (i) cortical circuits, (ii) neuromodulation and (iii) subcortical regions enable efficient credit assignment in the brain.
Rui did his PhD at the University of Edinburgh (UK) as part of the Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation where he established a collaboration between theoretical (Mark van Rossum) and experimental groups (P. Jesper Sjöström). During this time Rui was also a visiting PhD student at the University College London (UK) and McGill University (Canada). Next, Rui conducted postdoctoral research in computational neuroscience & machine learning at the University of Oxford (UK) with Tim Vogels where he established collaborations with the groups of Nando de Freitas (Oxford/Google Deepmind) and Nigel Emptage (Oxford). Next, Rui did a short postdoc with the group of Walter Senn (Bern, Switzerland) in collaboration with Yoshua Bengio (MILA, Canada). In 2018 Rui moved to the University of Bristol to start his own group (Neural & Machine Learning group), which in 2023 moved to the University of Oxford.
Rui co-organises the Oxford NeuroTheory Forum.