Michael Beyeler
Assistant Professor
Research Area
Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Biography
Dr. Michael Beyeler directs the Bionic Vision Lab at UC Santa Barbara. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from UC Irvine and holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and an M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Before joining UCSB in 2019, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Washington, where his work on computational models of bionic vision laid the foundation for the research now pursued in his lab.
Dr. Beyeler also serves as Associate Director of the UCSB Center for Virtual Environments and Behavior (ReCVEB) and has received several prestigious awards, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award and the DP2 New Innovator Award. Most recently, he was honored with the Harold J. Plous Memorial Award 2024-25 in recognition of his outstanding contributions to UC Santa Barbara’s intellectual life through research, teaching, and service.
Research
The Bionic Vision Lab is an interdisciplinary group interested in exploring the mysteries of human, animal, and artificial vision. Our passion lies in unraveling the science behind bionic technologies that may one day restore useful vision to people living with incurable blindness.
At the heart of our lab is a diverse team that integrates computer science and engineering with neuroscience and psychology. What unites us is a shared fascination with the intricacies of vision and its potential public health applications. However, we are not just about algorithms and data; our research projects range from trying to understand perception in individuals with visual impairments to crafting biophysical models of brain activity and engaging in the transformative world of virtual and augmented reality to create novel visual accessibility tools.
What sets our lab apart is our connection to the community of implant developers and bionic eye recipients. We don't just theorize; we are committed to transforming our ideas into practical solutions that are rigorously tested across different bionic eye technologies. Our goal is to enhance not just scientific understanding, but to foster a greater sense of independence in the lives of those with visual impairments.
Selected Publications
LG Nadolskis, LM Turkstra, E Larnyo, M Beyeler (2024). Aligning visual prosthetic development with implantee needs. Translational Vision Science & Technology (TVST)
A Varshney, M Munns, J Kasowski, M Zhou, C He, S Grafton, B Giesbrecht, M Hegarty, M Beyeler (2024). Stress affects navigation strategies in immersive virtual reality. Scientific Reports 14: 5949
A Xu, M Beyeler (2023). Retinal ganglion cells undergo cell type–specific functional changes in a computational model of cone-mediated retinal degeneration. Frontiers in Neuroscience: Special Issue “Rising Stars in Visual Neuroscience”
J Kasowski, BA Johnson, R Neydavood, A Akkaraju, M Beyeler (2023). A systematic review of extended reality (XR) for understanding and augmenting vision loss. Journal of Vision 23(5):5, 1–24
J Kasowski & M Beyeler (2022). Immersive virtual reality simulations of bionic vision. ACM Augmented Humans (AHs) ‘22
N Han, S Srivastava, A Xu, D Klein, M Beyeler (2021). Deep learning-based scene simplification for bionic vision. ACM Augmented Humans (AHs) ‘21
M Beyeler, D Nanduri, JD Weiland, A Rokem, GM Boynton, I Fine (2019). A model of ganglion axon pathways accounts for percepts elicited by retinal implants. Scientific Reports 9 (1), 9199
M Beyeler, N Dutt, JL Krichmar (2016), 3D visual response properties of MSTd emerge from an efficient, sparse population code, Journal of Neuroscience 36 (32), 8399-8415
