Kanaka Rajan to join Medical School faculty, will serve as founding faculty member within the Kempner Institute
![Kanaka Rajan](https://news.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/kanaka.rajan_.sized_.png?resize=1488%2C99999)
Kanaka Rajan will work jointly with the HMS Department of Neurobiology and the Kempner Institute, supporting the intersecting research, scientific, and educational missions of both communities.
The Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence at Harvard University announces the appointment of Kanaka Rajan as its first faculty member hired within the recently launched institute. As a founding faculty member at the Kempner, Rajan will serve as an institute investigator. Rajan will also have a dual appointment, serving as a member of the faculty in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School
“We are thrilled to have Dr. Rajan join the Kempner, where she will play a key role in helping to shape and advance the institute’s research program,” said Kempner Co-Director Bernardo Sabatini. “She is a true leader in the field, using innovative techniques to tackle big, difficult questions, and expanding the possibilities for how we use artificial intelligence and machine learning to understand the enduring mysteries of the brain.”
“Computational approaches to understanding brain function is a frontier area of research,” said David Ginty, chair of the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. “Kanaka Rajan has already made enormous contributions to this area of research, and we are fortunate that she will join our community at Harvard Medical School to further advance and galvanize the field of neurobiology. We are poised to make progress in this exciting area of research in partnership with the Kempner Institute.”