Alan Jasanoff is an associate professor of biological engineering and an associate member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, with appointments also in the Departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Nuclear Science and Engineering.

His work focuses on the development of “next generation” neuroimaging techniques designed to provide large-scale molecular and cellular information noninvasively from living brains.  Much of the Jasanoff laboratory’s research involves the creation and application of MRI-detectable probes of neuronal signaling. Probes are derived from small molecules, engineered proteins, or nanoparticles that affect MRI contrast to varying extents depending on the presence of molecular targets in the brain. The Jasanoff group also uses advanced functional MRI methods, in conjunction with other physiological measurement techniques, to study systems-level neural function and plasticity animals. 

Jasanoff earned an MPhil in chemistry from Cambridge University and a PhD in biophysics from Harvard University, and then became a Whitehead Fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research before joining the MIT faculty in 2004. He was named a Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation Scholar in 2004 and received the McKnight Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Award in 2006. Jasanoff was also a 2007 recipient of the Director's New Innovator Award from the National Institutes of Health.

Deb Roy is a tenured member of the MIT faculty and directs the Cognitive Machines group at the MIT Media Lab. A native of Canada, he received his bachelor of computer engineering from the University of Waterloo in 1992 and his PhD in cognitive science from MIT in 1999. He joined the MIT faculty in 2000 and was named AT&T Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences in 2003.

Roy studies how children learn language, and designs machines that learn to communicate in human-like ways. To enable this work, he has pioneered new data-driven methods for analyzing and modeling human linguistic and social behavior. He has authored numerous scientific papers on artificial intelligence, cognitive modeling, human-machine interaction, data mining and information visualization.

Roy's research is frequently featured in the media including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, National Geographic, Science, BBC and National Public Radio.

Mriganka Sur is the Paul E. Newton Professor of Neuroscience, head of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and director of the Simons Initiative on Autism and the Brain at MIT.

Sur studies the organization, development and plasticity of the cerebral cortex of the brain using experimental and theoretical approaches. He has discovered fundamental principles by which networks of the cerebral cortex are wired during development and change dynamically during learning.

His laboratory has identified gene networks underlying cortical plasticity, and pioneered high resolution imaging methods to study cells, synapses and circuits of the intact brain. Recently, his group has demonstrated novel mechanisms underlying disorders of brain development, and proposed innovative strategies for treating such disorders.

Sur received the BTech degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, in 1974 and the PhD degree in electrical engineering from Vanderbilt University, Nashville, in 1978. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the Charles Judson Herrick Award of the American Association of Anatomists, the A.P. Sloan Fellowship, the McKnight Development Award, the Hans-Lukas Teuber Scholar Award, the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, the Sigma Xi Lectureship, and the Foundation Day Medal of the National Brain Research Center, India. At MIT, he has received awards for outstanding teaching and been recognized with the Sherman Fairchild and Newton Chairs. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of the UK, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Neuroscience Research Program, the National Academy of Sciences, India, the Rodin Academy, Sweden, and the Third World Academy of Sciences.