Michael Beyeler 2024-2025 Plous Award Lecture: Learning to See Again: Building a Smarter Bionic Eye
Speaker
Michael BeyelerLocation
Alumni Hall, Mosher Alumni HouseInfo
What does it mean to see with a bionic eye? While modern visual prosthetics can generate flashes of light, they don’t yet restore natural vision. What might bionic vision actually look like? Why do some users struggle to interpret what they see, while others find ways to adapt? And why do many ultimately stop using their implants? In this talk, I’ll explore the perceptual challenges of artificial vision, the barriers that limit its everyday use, and how smarter, more adaptive technology could move beyond simple flashes of light toward a bionic eye that is not just functional, but truly usable.
Watch a short clip of Towards a Smart Bionic Eye from the National Library of Science.
BIO | Michael Beyeler is Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Psychological & Brain Sciences at UC Santa Barbara, where he directs the Bionic Vision Lab. His research focuses on computational models of vision to advance bionic technologies that may one day restore useful sight to people with incurable blindness. His lab collaborates with implant developers and bionic eye recipients to bridge theory and application, aiming to make emerging technologies both scientifically rigorous and functionally meaningful. He serves as Associate Director of the UCSB Center for Virtual Environments and Behavior (ReCVEB), and his work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as well as the Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies (ICB).
