The Salk Institute recently appointed neuroscientist Talmo Pereira to the Salk Fellows Program. Pereira, who begins at Salk this fall, comes from Princeton University, where he developed computational methods for quantifying animal behavior through motion tracking technology that leverages artificial intelligence (AI). Pereira is interested in building and using computational tools that leverage AI to solve biological problems that would not be tractable otherwise.

At Salk, he plans to develop new computational methods to quantify and model biological dynamics across a diverse set of application areas, including social behavior, motor control, plant morphology, and single cell states throughout development and disease.

“I am so grateful for the united efforts of the Salk community to identify and recruit a rising star as bright as Talmo Pereira,” says Salk Professor Kay Tye, who chaired the Salk Fellows Search Committee. “A true genius, Talmo is already forming collaborations in areas ranging from plant growth to social hierarchies, and adds profoundly to the diversity, depth, and dimension of our scientific community at Salk in terms of who he is as a person, who he is as a theoretician, who he is as a scientist, and the way his mind works.”

The Salk Fellows Program brings scientists from broad disciplines to the Institute to trigger innovation and perpetuate the collaborative spirit of the Institute. Most fellows come directly from a PhD or MD program and have expertise in a wide range of innovative technologies. The Institute welcomed its inaugural class of fellows from 2014 to 2016, and all three are now in tenure-track faculty positions at Salk or UC Berkeley.