Chairs

Riddhi J. Pitliya, PhD.

My research focuses on active inference, human cognition, and multi-agent systems. I completed my PhD at the University of Oxford, where I investigated how individuals infer causal structures and agency in their environments, particularly across the depression spectrum. We found that depressive symptoms are linked to reduced sensitivity to inhibitory causal relations, reduced perceptions of agency, and a tendency to engage in frequent but less goal-directed actions when learning about causal structures. Currently, I work at VERSES in the Intelligent Systems Lab, where I develop computational models of theory of mind, leveraging active inference to facilitate collaboration and competition among multiple agents.

Miguel De Llanza Varona

I’m currently a PhD student at the University of Sussex under the supervision of Christopher L. Buckley and Anil Seth. My research lies at the intersection of AI and theoretical neuroscience where I explore the theoretical underpinnings of representation learning in bounded rational agents. My main research interests are twofold:  first, how cognitive constraints (e.g., metabolic costs or limited memory) interfere with optimal Bayesian inference; and second, what are the challenges of learning representations in service of reconstructing the data in misspecified generative models (e.g., VAEs).

Peter Thestrup Waade

My research focuses on computational cognitive modelling of multi-scale social interaction, particularly from the perspective of active inference and predictive processing. I did my PhD with Chris Mathys at the Interacting Minds Centre at Aarhus University, and am starting a postdoc position at the Translational Neuromodelling Unit at ETH Zürich with Klaas Stephan. I develop Julia software for cognitive modelling in general, the Hierarchical Gaussian Filter and active inference with POMDP’s - I also do some work in consciousness research, on joint action in partner dancing and on Chinese philosophy and predictive processing.

Robert Chis-Ciure, PhD.

I’m an ERC postdoctoral research fellow in Anil Seth’s lab at the University of Sussex and Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science. Our research focuses on formalised notions of emergence and computational neurophenomenology. We’re using hybrid predictive coding and active inference formalisms to model various phenomenal properties of experience and validate them experimentally. In doing this, we’re building toward a new methodological paradigm, Phenomenomics, to comprehensively characterise the “inner worlds” of human and, eventually, all other observers—their phenomenome—by also leveraging AI/ML strategies on large scale datasets. Before Sussex, I was a Fulbright postdoc at NYU under David Chalmers, a Tatiana Foundation postdoc in Georg Northoff’s lab, and a Fulbright Ph.D. student in Giulio Tononi’s lab, working on consciousness at the intersection of philosophy, neuroscience, and computational modelling. In my free time, I do various projects as an affiliated researcher at the Wolfram Institute.

Christoph Koenig

I am interested in perceptual neuroscience and neurological disorders. Coming from an entrepreneurial background where I built an edtech platform, I transitioned to neuroscience through an MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL. My dissertation research provided evidence for primary visual cortex involvement in postdictive processing, challenging traditional feedforward models. Currently, at Charité Berlin's neuropathology department, I investigate Alzheimer's disease mechanisms with a focus on interleukin-12 signalling. I aim to combine my entrepreneurial experience with neuroscientific training to develop scalable early detection methods for Alzheimer's disease.

Work in Progress

1. Repository of Active Inference Resources
   We are compiling a comprehensive repository of resources on active inference. This will include introductory materials, research papers, and tutorials, all categorised for easy navigation.

2. Meeting Recordings
   We are working on publishing recordings of past and future meetings online.

3. Joint Research Symposia
   We are planning on organising joint symposia with other research communities to strengthen cross-community interaction and collaboration..