Peter Dayan

Peter Dayan explores the deep connections between biological and engineered reinforcement learning systems. Drawing on decades of research in computational neuroscience, he discusses how insights from how animals and humans learn can inform the design of better RL algorithms, and conversely how modern RL provides new hypotheses about neural computation.

Peter Dayan is a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany. He is renowned for his work bridging computational neuroscience and machine learning, particularly in understanding how the brain implements reinforcement learning. He co-authored the influential textbook "Theoretical Neuroscience" with Larry Abbott.

He is a fellow of the Royal Society, the Academy of Medical Sciences, and the Cognitive Science Society. His research has been foundational in understanding the neural substrates of reward prediction errors and decision-making.