Call for Applications to: 

2026 Telluride Neuromorphic AI Workshop

Telluride, Colorado, June 25 –July 15, 2026, https://tellurideneuromorphic.org 

We are now accepting applications! 

PARTICIPANT APPLICATION DEADLINE: March 10th, 2026

Over more than 3 decades, the workshop has shaped chip design, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence, and has been a forum connecting across disciplines such as neuroscience/cognitive science, AI and machine learning, robotics, engineering, computer vision, and signal processing. 

Details of this year’s workshop are at https://sites.google.com/view/telluride-2026/home

IMPORTANT DATES

Application Website Opens - 1st February, 2026

Application Website Closes - March 10th 2026

Notification of Acceptance - April 2nd, 2026

Registration payment due: May 15th 2026

Workshop goals:

The fundamental questions driving the workshop are what can neuroscience teach AI and how can AI help neuroscience? Neuromorphic AI engineering is inspired by  organizing principles from biological nervous systems. Over the past 31 years, the neuromorphic AI research community engineered sensors, perception, and systems infrastructure, cognition, control, language, and learning. The workshop mission is to promote interaction between senior and junior researchers; to educate new members of the community; to introduce new enabling fields and applications to the community; and to support lasting collaborations.

Format:

The three week summer workshop is a hands-on collaborative event that will include lectures on systems and cognitive neuroscience, practical tutorials on emerging hardware, mobile robots, engineering projects, and special interest groups. Participants will actively contribute to multiple projects. They are encouraged to become involved in as many of the other activities proposed as interest and time allow. There will be two lectures in the morning that cover issues that are important to the workshop community. Some of these lectures will be tutorial (rather than detailed reports of current research), given by invited speakers. Project groups meet in the afternoons, and after dinner. 

2026 Topic Areas:

Projects this year will focus on developments in robotics, learning, auditory processing, multi-modal neural integration and computational modeling. The topic areas for this year's workshop are:

1. NBI: Neural Basis of Intention

Organizers: Malcolm Slaney (Stanford), Shihab Shamma (University of Maryland)

2. RNIC: Neuromorphic Robotics & Integrated Circuits

Organizers: Paul Kirkland (Western Sydney University), Shantanu Chakrabartty (Washington University in St. Louis), Claude Wang (John Hopkins University)

3. SYNC: Spatiotemporal dYnamics in Neural Computation

Organizers: Nicole Dumont (University of Zurich),
Karolina Ignatiadis (MED-EL Medical Electronics)

Special Telluride Neuro-AI discussions: during the second week, a group of experts in neuroscience, control, computer vision, chip industry and ML/AI will lead discussion on the future of Neuro-AI.

Details of the topic areas can be found at

https://sites.google.com/view/telluride-2026/topic-areas

Location & Arrangements:

The Workshop will take place in the small town of Telluride, 2700m (9000 ft) high in southwest Colorado, about 6 hours drive from Denver (350 miles). There is a Telluride airport and several small airports (e.g. Montrose) close to Telluride. Facilities within the beautifully renovated public high school building are accessible to participants with disabilities. Participants will be housed in shared condominiums, within walking distance of the school. 

The workshop is informal and hands-on. Participants are not required to have had previous experience in chip design, robotics, machine vision, systems level neurophysiology or brain modeling. However, we strongly encourage active researchers with relevant backgrounds from academia, industry and national laboratories to apply, in particular if they are prepared to work on specific projects, talk about their own work or bring demonstrations to the workshop (e.g. robots, chips, software). Wireless internet access will be provided. Technical staff present throughout the workshop will assist with software and hardware issues. Participants should  bring their personal laptop and relevant hardware.

No cars are required. Given the small size of the town, we recommend that you do not rent a car. Telluride is surrounded by beautiful mountains, so we recommend bringing hiking boots, warm clothes, rain gear, hat, and a backpack; the town park has a swimming pool, beach volleyball, and tennis courts.

Unless otherwise arranged with the organizers, we expect participants to stay for the entire duration of this three week workshop.

Financial Arrangements:

Notification of acceptances will be emailed after April 2nd, 2026. 

Unless otherwise requested, the workshop will cover your accommodations and facilities costs for the 3 weeks duration as part of the registration fees. 

Registration Fees: The registration fee is 2000 USD which partially covers the workshop cost of lodging and facilities for the 3-week workshop. The fees are expected from all participants at the time of acceptance. Each participant is responsible for their own travel to and from the workshop; applicants are advised to book travel as early as possible.

Accommodations: The registration fee covers the cost of a shared condominium, typically a shared bedroom in a condo with other workshop participants and faculty. Upgrades to a private room or condo will cost extra and will be based on availability. Telluride is very expensive and workshop housing is strictly limited to what the workshop has contracted. 

The 2026 Workshop on Neuromorphic AI is sponsored by the National Science Foundation and is supported by the Institute of Neuromorphic Engineering, University of Maryland - College Park, Institute for Neuroinformatics – University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Johns Hopkins University, Boston University, University of Western Sydney and the Salk Institute.

Who is eligible to apply?

Applicants should be at the level of graduate (PhD) students or above (i.e. postdoctoral fellows, faculty, research and engineering staff and the equivalent positions in industry and national laboratories). We encourage women and minority candidates to apply.

Anyone interested in proposing or discussing specific projects should contact the appropriate topic leaders directly.

Application information needed:

1. Contact email address.

2. First name, Last name, Affiliation, valid e-mail address.

3. Curriculum Vitae (a short version, please).

4. Maximum one page (or less greatly preferred) summary of background and interests relevant to the workshop, including possible ideas for workshop projects. 

5. Indicate which topic areas you would most likely join (SYNC, RNIC, NBI).

6. Two letters of recommendation (uploaded directly by references). Inform your references that if they enter ASCII text recommendations, they should sign these within their text (the system does not identify the recommender otherwise).

Selection Criteria:

Applications will be evaluated by the organizing committee according to the merits of the applicant's scientific qualifications and background, the strength of the proposed alignment to one or more topic areas, and the extent to which the applicant  contributes a unique voice to a collaborative community committed to diverse viewpoints in all forms, including gender, race, affiliations, seniority, etc. Due to high interest in the workshop, we expect a competitive selection process, so concisely highlight in your application how you can uniquely contribute to the success of our workshop and the neuromorphic research community.

Applicants will be notified by email

Questions can be addressed to Claire Pelofi (claire.pelofi@nyu.edu)