Orthogonal Lab Annual Report for 2024

Another year of the Orthogonal Research and Education Laboratory (2024). We have had a great year! I posted a summary video on YouTube that covers activities related to Saturday Morning NeuroSim, our Open Science/Open-source interest group, the Computational Developmental Systems interest group, the Representational Brains and Phenotypes interest group, and the Cybernetics interest group. I also discuss our educational initiatives and conference/publication activities.

The seminal activity of the lab is the Saturday Morning NeuroSim meeting, which happens on Saturdays at 10AM ET (North America). This is based on the Saturday Morning Physics educational events, which originated in Germany and are popular in Physics departments and US National Labs. We had 45 meetings in 2024, and covered all manner of intersections between computational, neuroscience, social science, molecular biology, and complexity theory. 

The Computational Developmental Systems interest group can best be described as Neuro-Devo-Psych. This combines our work on Computational Critical Periods and Computational Developmental Biology (DevoWorm-associated). This also intersects with work in the Representational Brains and Phenotypes interest group and the Developmental Neurosimulation approach. 

Our Open Science/Open-source interest group sponsors Google Summer of Code participation in addition to assorted activities in the research practice and open-source project management spheres. The rejuvenation of our Cybernetics interest group features a reading group and other academic activities.