Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience celebrates 20 years at UC Berkeley

August 4, 2025

 By Rachel Henderson

Twenty years to the day that the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience was established at UC Berkeley, more than 100 Redwood Center alums, current researchers, and other scientific colleagues gathered on campus to reconnect, reminisce, and discuss the future of theoretical neuroscience at the Redwood Center’s 20th anniversary celebration. The day-long event was held on July 1, 2025 and featured remarks from founder Jeff Hawkins, guest speaker Terry Sejnowski, many current and former Redwood Center researchers, and other scientists and leaders in science and technology.

Researchers at the Redwood Center develop and test theories about how the brain carries out computations underlying behaviors such as perception, action, cognition, and learning. 

“The traditional approach [to understanding brain function] in neuroscience is experimentally based — recording from neurons and attempting to build a story of brain function from these measurements,” said Bruno Olshausen, director of the Redwood Center. “And the theory side is sort of extrapolating ahead and thinking about how it might be working.”

Over the past 20 years, their work has led to advances in our understanding of the brain in a number of different ways — particularly how oscillations in neural activity play a role in neural computation and how populations of neurons compute together, according to Olshausen, who is a professor in the Herbert Wertheim School of Optometry & Vision Science and Department of Neuroscience, and a member of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute (HWNI). Theoretical neuroscience in general, and specific work at the Redwood Center, has also had a significant impact on machine learning and artificial intelligence.

 “This is an especially exciting time with the rise of AI, and what has enabled this rise in AI is that these new AI models originate from computational models of the brain — neural network models,” said Olshausen. He cites the work of former Redwood Center graduate student Jascha Sohl-Dickstein as just one example of how the Redwood Center has contributed to AI. Sohl-Dickstein, who spoke at the celebration, helped create new learning algorithms while at the Redwood Center, and later invented diffusion models — now commonly used to generate images and videos.

According to Fritz Sommer, a member of the Redwood Center and adjunct professor in HWNI, the Redwood Center was one of the earliest centers for theoretical neuroscience and may have served as a model for other universities who then built similar centers. It started in 2002 as the non-profit Redwood Neuroscience Institute (RNI) in Menlo Park, CA. RNI was founded by Hawkins — the inventor of the PalmPilot — with the help of Olshausen, Sommer, Tony Bell, Bill Softky, and Pentti Kanerva. In 2005, it was gifted to UC Berkeley where it became one of HWNI’s research centers and was renamed the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience.

Since then, the Redwood Center has grown to include six faculty members and numerous graduate students, staff, and postdoctoral fellows. It has trained over 50 PhDs from many different disciplines and graduate programs at UC Berkeley, including neuroscience, vision science, computer science, physics, computational biology, and biophysics, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of the field.

Many of these alums returned for the anniversary celebration and some spoke at the event, which was part reunion, part scientific conference. In addition to panel discussions focused on the future of theoretical neuroscience from the perspectives of experimental neuroscience, theory, and machine intelligence, many former students and postdocs shared what they gained from their time at the Redwood Center and the contributions that they have been making since then, in both industry and academia.

“In many cases, these people are now leaders in the whole burgeoning AI industry and landscape, and some are faculty in neuroscience and in computer science,” Olshausen said. 

The event kicked off with introductory remarks from Olshausen, HWNI director Ehud Isacoff, and former HWNI director Robert Knight. Hawkins gave the first talk, where he shared his path from technology pioneer to theoretical neuroscientist, which had motivated him to launch the original incarnation of the Redwood Center.  The same year that the center moved to Berkeley, Hawkins co-founded the neuroscience-based AI company Numenta, and he discussed their recent progress and new Thousand Brains Project during his talk.

Sejnowski, a professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, also gave a talk — harkening back to 20 years ago when he spoke at the very first Redwood Center symposium.

“[Sejnowski has] been very much a part of things we've been doing over the past 20 years,” said Olshausen. “He is one of the leading figures in the field who we look up to for inspiration and as a champion of our cause.” Sejnowski spoke about the advent of large-scale neuronal recording methods and the new insights they have provided about the brain.

Berkeley Neuroscience PhD Program alums Liberty Hamilton and Alex Huth spoke on a panel at the event, on what also happened to be their first day as faculty members at UC Berkeley. They recently moved from the University of Texas at Austin to join the Neuroscience and Statistics departments at Berkeley, and they are both now HWNI members. 

Liberty Hamilton, Doris Tsao, Alex Huth, Jacob Yates, and Robert Knight are sitting in front of an audience, smiling, while Knight speaks into a microphone.

Left to right: HWNI faculty members Liberty Hamilton, Doris Tsao, Alex Huth, Jacob Yates, and Robert Knight at the Redwood Center’s 20th anniversary event. Photo by postdoctoral fellow Hadi Vafaii (Yates lab).

Bruno Olshausen sitting in the audience, smiling, as he appears to be listening to a speaker.

Redwood Center director Bruno Olshausen. Photo by Hadi Vafaii.

Dileep George and Jeff Hawkins smiling, with their arms around each other.

 Dileep George (left, DeepMind) and Redwood Center founder Jeff Hawkins. Photo by PhD student Galen Chuang (Olshausen lab).

Terry Sejnowski is seated and speaking into a microphone. Christoph Kirst is sitting next to Sejnowski and looking at him.

Terry Sejnowski (right) and Christoph Kirst (UCSF, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab). Photo by Hadi Vafaii.

Fellow Neuroscience PhD alum Charles Cadieu also made remarks. Cadieu was the first graduate student to join the Redwood Center at Berkeley, and is currently the co-founder and CEO of the climate tech company Spiritus.

HWNI faculty members Knight, Doris Tsao, and Jacob Yates also spoke on a panel. Yates is a member of the Redwood Center, and Knight facilitated the Redwood Center’s move to Berkeley when he was the director of HWNI. In addition to scheduled panels and remarks, the event included open mic sessions so that more people could share memories of their time at the center, career updates, and thoughts about the field.

The 20th anniversary event was capped off with a gathering at Jupiter restaurant and beer garden — the traditional place for Redwood Center celebrations from the day of its inaugural symposium 20 years ago.

“Whenever we have something to celebrate — somebody got a paper [accepted], or somebody's leaving for a new position, or somebody’s starting at the Redwood Center — we usually go to Jupiter. So it’s very fitting that we [went] there” on the 20th anniversary, Olshausen said.

Many more celebrations are likely ahead. Olshausen and Sommer say they are excited about the future of theoretical neuroscience and how the Redwood Center can contribute to it, particularly with the recent development of new technologies that allow scientists to observe the activity of thousands of neurons at once, which can be used to test theoretical models, as well as the use of AI as a tool in neuroscience research. Olshausen also says that advances in AI and neuroscience could lead to new discoveries and innovation in both fields.

“Given that these artificial intelligence algorithms are based on neural networks that were inspired by brain function, can we learn something about brains from these architectures? And vice versa — can we gain even more from neuroscience inspiration [to advance AI]?” Olshausen said.

To learn more about the Redwood Center, please visit their website

Six people are sitting around a table outside with food and drinks, smiling and talking.

Celebrating at Jupiter. Facing the camera are Redwood Center alums Jesse Livezy (left), Vasha DuTell (middle), and Michael Fang (right). Photo by Galen Chuang.

An almost-full seated audience with a few people standing at the back of the room. The people are clapping and smiling.

Photo by Hadi Vafaii.

Fritz Sommer, Liberty Hamilton, and Jascha Sohl-Dickstein are talking outside a building, and there are other people in the background. Sommer and Hamilton are holding plates of food.

Fritz Sommer (center) talking with Jascha Sohl-Dickstein and Liberty Hamilton. Photo by Hadi Vafaii.