Professor John Beggs' research group uses high-density microelectrode arrays to investigate collective interactions among hundreds of cortical neurons. They use concepts from statistical physics like criticality and avalanches, as well as network science, to understand emergent neural activity.  

Professor Rob de Ruyter studies visual information processing both by electrophysiological methods in flies and psychophysical experiments in humans. Much of this work revolves around the question of whether and how biological systems make optimal use of the signals gathered by their sense organs. This is especially interesting for natural conditions; sampling the visual statistics of natural scenes is therefore a key component of the research program.