Mission, Vision, Values#
Mission#
The brain is a tremendously complex system and in order to understand it we are going to need large amounts of data from many different kinds of measurements. Our mission is to develop, implement, and use data science methods to integrate the information provided by these measurements and to analyze it into a coherent picture. In particular, we develop statistical analysis techniques to understand the role of networks of brain areas in complex behaviors and in brain disorders, and we implement these techniques in robust, efficient, and openly-available computer software.
Vision#
We develop open-source software tools and use these tools ourselves. This leads to a virtuous cycle where our tools and our results constantly improve.
We are a part of a broader community. Hence, we do not limit ourselves to contribution only to our own projects. On the contrary, to give our own work both a stronger foundation, as well as broader impact, we contribute to community projects whenever we can and aiming to push our contributions “up the stack” to the most general use possible. This allows us to collaborate with a broader community of developers and to contribute to a broader set of use-cases.
We are empowered to learn, develop, and apply new methods and new technologies.
Values#
Transparency: Our research and the products of this research belong to us as the creators of this work. But in order for it to have the best impact, it needs to be consistently delivered, thoroughly explained and effectively disseminated to the research community and the broader public. Whenever possible, our research products are made openly available early in the research process. This approach has many benefits, including the possibility of establishing collaborations and receiving early feedback that accelerates and improves our work. We create tools that facilitate and aid interpretation and explanation of our work.
Inclusiveness: Our work is better for the contributions of people with different perspectives. We actively seek to work with individuals from a variety of backgrounds. This means that we are open to collaboration with researchers in a variety of disciplines and in a variety of career stages, with a wide variety of skills and knowledge. We also value the views and perspectives of people from a variety of individual backgrounds and with any individual characteristics with respect to (but not limited to): age, sexual orientation, national origin and cultural background, race, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, physical ability.
Rigor: Qualitative observations about phenomena should be supported by quantitative evidence derived from data. Uncertainty should be quantified. Both the reliability and the accuracy of analysis methods should be evaluated and quantified. We do not shy away from research that observes what is, rather than testing what might be.
Practicality: We are motivated to create research that is practical in its application. This means that the software that we create should be easy to use and applicable to as wide a range of use-cases as reasonably possible. It also means that we hope to answer questions with translation into an improvement of the human condition, and to create methods that can be applied to solve real-world problems. Brain health is a major challenge, with implications to all of humanity. We believe that our research should contribute to the understanding and improvement of brain health.
Curiosity: That said, we remain open to asking questions that are motivated purely by a desire to understand. We are interested in expanding the field of our view to see new ideas and to observe new phenomena.