2026 NTP Symposium

Schedule Speakers Scientific Sessions Evening Events Workshops Registration Flyer

Registration & Important Dates

Registration is FREE! Join us for three days of science, workshops, and networking at no cost.

Important Deadlines:

Abstract Submission Deadline: April 28, 2026.
General Registration Closes: May 4, 2026
Vendor Registration Closes: April 26, 2026

Poster Information and Awards:

Poster boards will accommodate posters up to 48 in X 48 in. Participants are requested that their posters fit within the allotted display area.

Awards

The symposium will recognize outstanding presentations with the following awards:

1 Best talk award
Poster Awards
- Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
  - 1 Best poster award
  - 2 Runner-up awards
- Systems & Behavioral Neuroscience
  - 1 Best poster award
  - 2 Runner-up awards

Each best poster and speaker award includes a $500 travel award

**Poster presentation is a graduation requirement for students in the NTP program, and awards will be given for best posters.**

Registration- Closed Abstract Submission – Closed Sponsor Registration – Closed

Symposium Flyer

Download or view the official symposium flyer for a quick overview of the event, dates, and locations.

Download Official Flyer

Event App & Resources

Stay up-to-date with the latest schedule changes, speaker locations, and interactive features using our official event app and web portal.

Web App Portal

Access the symposium program, abstracts, and maps directly from any browser (desktop or mobile) without downloading an app.

Launch Web App

Mobile App Download

For the full event experience, scan the code below to download the mobile app.

Schedule

Download Schedule (PDF)

Wednesday, May 20th	Thursday, May 21st	Friday, May 22nd
7:30-8:00: Sponsor Space Opens 8:00–9:00: Registration / Check-in	7:30-8:00: Sponsor Space Opens 8:00–9:00: Registration / Check-in	7:30-8:00: Sponsor Space Opens 8:00–9:00: Registration / Check-in
9:00–9:15: Welcome Remarks	9:00–10:30: Industry Career Panel	9:00–10:15: Academic Funding Session
Scientific Session I (Part 1): 9:15–10:35: Alison Barth, Jarrod A. Lewis-Peacock, & Student Talks 10:35–10:55: Coffee Break	10:30–10:50: Coffee Break	10:15–10:30: Coffee Break
Scientific Session I (Part 2): 10:55–12:20: Daniel Kerschensteiner, Lisa Monteggia, & Student Talk	Scientific Session II: 10:50–12:20: Yin Fellowship award ceremony; Michael Michaelides, Cathyrn Cadwell, & Student Talks	Scientific Session III (Part 1): 10:30–11:10: Student Talks 11:10–11:40: Monika Jadi
12:20–1:30: Lunch	12:25–1:30: Lunch	11:40-12:45: Lunch
1:30–2:00 Flash Talks 2:00–4:00 Poster Sessions and Sponsor Fair	1:30–3:00: Science Communication Panel 3:00–3:30: Flash Talks	12:45-1:45: Keynote Lecture II – David Gamm Scientific Session III (Part 2): 1:45–2:15: Min Dong
4:00–5:00: Keynote Lecture – Richard Tsien	3:30–5:30: Poster Sessions and Sponsor Fair	2:15–2:45: Closing Ceremony and Awards
5:00–6:00: Networking Social 6:00–7:30: Trivia	5:30–6:30: Faculty Debate	—

Keynotes & Invited Speakers

The complete program guide, including all speaker abstracts, locations, and presentation details, is available for download here.

Download Program PDF

Richard Tsien, PhD – NYU Langone

Time: Day 1, 4:00 PM

Location: First Floor Auditorium

Talk Title: Who controls the controllers? Inhibitory interneurons and brain plasticity

Linking transcriptomics to brain cell diversity, switching interneurons (and circuits) off and on. Layers of inhibitory control— Who controls the controllers? Why interneurons and GPCR modulation might co-evolve.

Bio: Richard Tsien is a world-renowned neurobiologist celebrated for his pioneering research on voltage-gated calcium channels and their critical role in neurotransmitter release and gene expression. His work elegantly bridges the gap between cellular biophysics and systemic neuroscience, particularly through his investigations into synaptic plasticity and the mechanisms underlying long-term potentiation.

A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Tsein’s extraordinary contributions have been recognized with the filed’s highest honors, including the Ralph W. Gerard Prize and Julius Axelrod Prize. Currently the Druckenmiller Professor of Neuroscience and founding director of the NYU Neuroscience Institute, his leadership and mentorship have been instrumental in shaping the global landscape of modern molecular neuroscience.

David Gamm, MD, PhD – University of Wisconsin – Madison

Time: Day 3, 11:10 AM

Location: First Floor Auditorium

Talk Title: Embracing the strengths and limitations of retinal organoids to build better disease models

Human pluripotent stem cell-derived retinal organoids (ROs) hold unique promise for modeling retinal disease and testing drug and gene therapies. However, like any model system, the strengths and limitations of ROs must be thoughtfully considered, and steps to mitigate shortcomings are needed to improve the rigor, reproducibility, and predictive value of RO-based model systems. I will focus on two broad areas of importance in RO modeling (with disease-specific examples of each): (1) interrogation of RO disease phenotypes and (2) creation of robust tools to assess treatment response.

Bio: David Gamm is a leading figure in the field of regenerative ophthalmology, dedicated to reversing the effects of incurable vision loss. As a practicing pediatric ophthalmologist at the University of Wisconsin and a principal investigator at the Waisman Center, Dr. Gamm bridges the gap between clinical care and cutting-edge laboratory science.

His research focuses on inherited and acquired retinal degenerative diseases, such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration. By leveraging human stem cell technology his lab successfully mimics human retinal development to uncover the cellular “checkpoints” required to grow healthy retinal tissue.

Session Speaker Roster: Thematic Divisions

Cellular, Molecular & Development

Focuses on basic mechanisms of cell function, genetics, and early development.

Min Dong, PhD – Harvard University

Talk title: A Parallel World: Homologues of Classic Bacterial Toxins

Bacterial toxins are major virulence factor. Recent progresses in sequencing microbial genomes revealed a growing number of homologues of classic bacterial toxins that are responsible for many human and animal diseases. Here I will represent our work identifying and characterizing these novel toxins.

Cathryn Cadwell, MD, PhD – University of California – San Francisco

Talk title: Sequencing-based connectomics reveals dynamic connectivity motifs in the developing human brain.

How cell type–specific connectivity patterns emerge during development remainslargely unknown, especially in the human brain. To map connectivity at scale, we developed a high-complexity barcoded rabies virus compatible with dissociated single-cell and single-nucleus RNA-sequencing readouts. We applied this tool in organotypic slices of the developing human cerebral cortex to map 8,918 connections during midgestation with molecular cell type annotation of each mapped pre- and post-synaptic cell pair. We find that cell type–specific connectivity motifs emerge early in the human brain and change dynamically during midgestation: highly interconnected networks of Cajal-Retzius cells and deep layer excitatory neurons emerge in early second trimester, which give way to more broad connectivity between immature excitatory and inhibitory subclasses in late second trimester. Our findings provide insights into the logic of circuit assembly in the human brain and demonstrate the power of sequencing-based connectomics for scalable circuit mapping of molecularly-defined cell types.

Lisa Monteggia, PhD – Vanderbilt University

Talk title: A Synaptic Paradigm for Ketamine’s Rapid Antidepressant Action

The presentation will outline a mechanistic hypothesis for ketamine’s rapid antidepressant effects, with an emphasis on its actions at the synapse. It will highlight how ketamine’s blockade of NMDA receptors initiates intracellular signaling pathways that contribute to both its rapid and sustained therapeutic effects.

Systems, Circuits & Computation

Focuses on neural circuits, large-scale network activity, and computational models.

Daniel Kerschensteiner, MD – Washington University in St. Louis

Talk title: Vision for predation
I will discuss ongoing work on the specialized pathways in the retina and brain that serve a critical visual survival behavior: predation. I will explore how a cell-type-specific acute zone of retinal ganglion cells establishes a sensory filter optimized for dynamic prey tracking. We will examine how this discrete retinal channel projects to the superior colliculus, and how downstream circuits decode these signals to construct a distance-selective, three-dimensional action volume essential for precise prey capture. To probe how broadly these strategies generalize, I will then turn to a comparative analysis in a marsupial whose lineage diverged from eutherian mammals ~160 million years ago.

Alison Barth, PhD – Carnegie Mellon University

Talk title: Uncertainty and learning leave a lasting trace in neocortical circuits

The brain is expert at inferring causality from environmental events. During association training, animals can learn to associate a water reward with a preceding sensory stimulus so that the stimulus becomes an accurate predictor of reward delivery. We are investigating how cortical circuits are modified during this form of inferential learning, using input- and target-defined synapse and cellular analysis in sensory neocortex. Network changes during association learning are concentrated in superficial layers, with transient changes in pyramidal neurons and long-lasting plasticity in GABAergic neurons. Importantly, changing the coupling probability of the stimulus and reward radically alters this program of synaptic plasticity, shifting synaptic potentiation to synaptic depression and changing sensory-evoked activity in specific cell types. New data from the lab suggests that neuromodulators associated with uncertainty, environmental volatility, and reward processing may be key to modifying cortical circuits. Our data suggest that a cognitive transition from uncertainty to correct prediction may be a key driver for synaptic plasticity during causal inference learning.

Monika Jadi, PhD – Yale University

Talk title: Do I? Do I Not? Strategy, Asymmetry, and the Computations of Cooperation

Cooperative behavior in primates requires the integration of social perception, decision-making, and learning, yet its computational basis remains poorly understood. We combined behavioral experiments, neural recordings, and computational modeling in freely moving marmoset dyads performing a coordinated lever-pulling task. Network analyses of high-throughput behavioral data revealed that cooperation emerges from real-time coupling of social gaze and action timing, with performance modulated by partner identity. These dynamics are well captured by a gaze-mediated drift-diffusion process in which variability in a partner’s actions is accumulated into a decision variable that guides coordinated responses. Neural recordings from dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) show that population trajectories track accumulated social evidence and predict cooperative success. A multi-agent reinforcement learning model with recurrent neural networks further explains the emergence of asymmetric cooperative roles, demonstrating that minimal differences in reward sensitivity reproduce observed behavioral and neural coordination patterns and generate testable predictions that are validated in dmPFC activity.

Behavior & Cognition

Focuses on complex behaviors, learning, memory, and cognitive processes.

Michael Michaelides, PhD – National Institute on Drug Abuse

Talk title: Brain drug exposure and circuit-state control: new strategies for improved pain and addiction therapies
Developing better CNS therapeutics requires moving beyond simple measures of drug potency and toward a circuit-level understanding of when, where, and how drugs act in the brain. In this talk, I will highlight two recently published studies from our lab that describe new strategies for improving drug safety and efficacy for pain, cocaine, and opioid addiction by controlling CNS drug exposure and circuit-state dependence.

Jarrod A. Lewis-Peacock, PhD – University of Texas at Austin

Talk title: Directed Removal of Working Memories

Working memory is our mental workspace, holding information briefly so we can reason, make decisions, and act. Yet its contents are far from stable—we are constantly deciding what to keep and what to let go. Some information is shielded from interference, some is disrupted by distraction, some quietly fades, and some is deliberately erased to make room for what’s next. In this talk, I will share how my lab uses behavioral experiments, brain imaging, and computational methods to examine how the brain manages this workspace. These findings reveal how we navigate the delicate balance between holding on and letting go—and how that balance shapes the short-and long-term fates of our memories.

Scientific Sessions

Our program will cover cutting-edge research in several exciting areas.

Scientific Session I (Day 1 Morning)
Time: Wednesday, May 20th, 9:15 AM – 12:15 PM (includes Coffee Break)

Details: Features 4 Faculty Talks and 2 Student Talks. Located in the First Floor Auditorium.

9:15-9:45
Faculty Speaker 1: Alison Barth, PhD
Talk title: Uncertainty and learning leave a lasting trace in neocortical circuits

9:45-10:15
Faculty Speaker 2: Jarrod A. Lewis-Peacock, PhD
Talk title: Directed Removal of Working Memories

10:15-10:35
Student Speaker 1: Kort Driessen
Topic:

10:35-10:55- Coffee Break

11:00-11:30
Faculty Speaker 3: Daniel Kerschensteiner, MD
Talk title: Vision for predation

11:30-12:00
Faculty Speaker 4: Lisa Monteggia, PhD
Talk title: A Synaptic Paradigm for Ketamine’s Rapid Antidepressant Action

12:00-12:30
Student Speaker 2: Miral Abdalaziz
Topic:

Scientific Session II (Day 2 Morning)

Time: Thursday, May 21st, 11:00 AM – 12:20 PM

Details: Features 2 Faculty Talks and 1 Student Talk. Located in the First Floor Auditorium.

11:05-11:35
Faculty Speaker 5: Michael Michaelides, PhD
Talk title: Brain drug exposure and circuit-state control: new strategies for improved pain and addiction therapies

11:35-12:05
Faculty Speaker 6: Cathryn Cadwell, MD, PhD
Talk title: Sequencing-based connectomics reveals dynamic connectivity motifs in the developing human brain.

12:05-12:25
Student Speaker 3: Leela Shah
Topic:

Scientific Session III (Day 3 Morning and Afternoon)

Time: Friday, May 22nd, 10:30 AM – 11:40 AM and 1:450 PM – 2:15 PM

Details: Features 2 Faculty Talks and 2 Student Talks. Located in the First Floor Auditorium.

10:30-10:50
Student Speaker 4: Sam Reid
Topic:

10:50-11:10
Student Speaker 5: Uma Chatterjee
Topic:

11:10-11:40
Faculty Speaker 7: Monika Jadi, PhD
Talk title: Do I? Do I Not? Strategy, Asymmetry, and the Computations of Cooperation

1:45-2:15
Faculty Speaker 8: Min Dong, PhD
Talk title: A Parallel World: Homologues of Classic Bacterial Toxins

Evening Events: Trivia & Debate Night

Join us for fun and competition!

Night 1: Networking Social & Trivia

Date/Time: Wednesday, May 20th

Location: 7560 Seminar Room and 7th Floor Atrium/Terrace

Schedule: Networking Social (5:00–6:00 PM) followed by Trivia (6:00–7:30 PM)

Description: Test your knowledge and enjoy drinks and snacks in a relaxed environment.

Night 2: Faculty Debate – Can organoids replace animal models?

Date/Time: Thursday, May 21st, 5:30–6:30 PM

Location: First Floor Auditorium

Description: Watch UW-Madison faculty members, debate about if organoids can replace animal models. This debate brings together experts to critically examine the strengths, limitations, and ethical considerations of two leading approaches in neuroscience research. The discussion explores how each model advances our understanding of neural development, disease, and treatment, while questioning their translational relevance and future roles. Attendees gain insight into whether emerging organoid technologies can complement or potentially replace traditional animal models.

Dr. David Gamm, Dr. Anita Bhattacharya, and Dr. Randolph Ashton will argue in favor of Organoids (NAMs), while Dr. Marina Emborg, Dr. David Herzfeld, and Dr. Ali Mohebi will defend the use of animal models, with Dr. Abbas Rizvi moderating and guiding the discussion to ensure it remains fair and balanced.

Professional Development Workshops

Enhance your skills with hands-on training sessions focusing on professional and career development.

Industry Career Panel

Date/Time: Thursday, May 21st, 9:00–10:30 AM

Location: First Floor Auditorium

Focus: This industry career panel will offer a candid look at the many career paths beyond academia, from biotech and pharma to data science and policy. Hearing directly from professionals helps students understand real-world skills, career trajectories, and how neuroscience research translates into impact.

Panelists: Frank Fan (Promega, Head of Biology, R&D), Donald McLaren (Senior Director, Clinical Biomarkers & Translational Medicine at Vigil Neuroscience, Inc.), Peter Luong (Nikon, Sales specialist), Karen Kleman (LGC Genomic, Product Manager)

Science Communication Panel

Date/Time: Thursday, May 21st, 2:30–3:30 PM

Location: Garden Level, B2550

Focus: This panel on science communication highlights how researchers can make complex ideas clear, engaging, and accessible to diverse audiences. It also explores career paths and practical strategies for building trust and impact through storytelling, media, and public outreach.

Panelist: Victoria Sutton (IP manager at WARF), Alicia Williams (Science writer at Morgridge), AnnaKay Kruger (Multimedia specialist at Promega)

Academic Funding Session

Date/Time: Friday, May 22nd, 9:00–10:15 AM

Location: First Floor Auditorium

Focus:

Panelist: Marcy Carlson (Associated Dean, Graduate School), Xinyu Zhao (Professor), Whitney Alexandra Stevens Sostre (Postdoctoral fellow), Grant Kusick (Postdoctoral fellow)

Our Valued Sponsors

We are grateful for the support of our partners who make this event possible. Interested in sponsoring? Contact us at ntp@mailplus.wisc.edu.

Sponsor Registration – Closed

Symposium Organizing Team

The 2026 NTP Symposium is planned and executed by a dedicated group of UW-Madison faculty, staff, and students. We thank our committee members for their hard work!

Faculty Lead Organizers

Raunak Sinha, Betsy Quinlan, David Ehrlich, Xinyu Zhao

Staff Support

Ana Garic, Dan Wagner

Student Organizing Committee

Madeline Crockett, Aayushi Raval, Amber Osterman, Jiyoun Lee, Sumedha Sengupta, Swapnali Patil, Adam Darlington, Ashton Barber, Lauren Kresser, Nick Stowe