Registration Closed

Registration Dates: August 15, 2026 - October 1, 2026. Registration is closed.

Registration Includes: 

• Welcome Reception (Thursday night, Nov 12, 7-9 pm, RSVP required)
• Admission to Symposium, includes Breakfast and Lunch (Friday, Nov 13, 9 am-6 pm)
• Symposium Dinner (Friday evening, Nov 13, 7-9 pm, RSVP required)
• Motor Coach Transportation from Charlottesville VA (as space allows).

Registration Fees* (registration is free for invited speakers and UVA attendees)

• Faculty/Professionals $100
• Postdocs and Graduate Students $50
• Undergraduate Students $25
• Late Registration Fee (Oct 2 - Oct 15) $200

Welcome Reception - Thursday, November 12

7:00–9:00 p.m. | RSVP required

Venue: The Graduate by Hilton Charlottesville
1309 West Main Street
Charlottesville, VA 22903

Location: 2nd Floor – The Game Room

Shuttle to VISION 2026 Symposium - Friday, November 13

8:00 a.m. pickup | RSVP required | Limited to 30 attendees (Please arrive 5 minutes before pickup)

Pickup location: The Graduate by Hilton Charlottesville. 1309 West Main Street. Charlottesville, VA 22903 | Meet near the valet parking lane on the right side of the hotel

Drop off location: Foundation Hall, Jefferson Scholars Foundation, 124 Maury Ave, Charlottesville, VA 22903

VISION 2026 Symposium - Friday, November 13

8:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m. | Registration required

Venue: Foundation Hall, Jefferson Scholars Foundation, 124 Maury Ave, Charlottesville, VA 22903

Dinner - Friday, November 13

7:30–9:30 p.m. | RSVP required

Venue: The Graduate by Hilton Charlottesville, 1309 West Main Street, Charlottesville, VA 22903

Location: 9th Floor – Piedmont Ballroom

Shuttle to SFN Meeting in Washington, D.C. - Saturday, November 14

RSVP required | Limited to 55 attendees

Pickup location 1: The Doyle Hotel, 499 W Main Street, Charlottesville, Virginia, 22902

• Pickup time: 9:00 AM (please arrive 10 minutes early)

Pickup location 2: The Graduate by Hilton Charlottesville, 1309 West Main Street, Charlottesville, VA 22903 | Meet near the valet parking lane on the right side of the Graduate hotel.

• Pickup time: 9:20 AM (please arrive 10 minutes early)

Drop Off location: Walter E. Washington Convention Center, 801 Allen Y. Lew Place NW, Washington, DC 20001

One-Way Shuttle: This shuttle provides one-way transportation only. Participants are responsible for arranging their own return transportation.

 BREAKFAST | 8:15–8:55 AM

Continental Breakfast

OPENING REMARKS | JC Cang | 8:55 AM 

Opening remarks

SESSION 1 | 9:00–10:20 AM

20 minutes per talk • Moderator: Adema Ribic

9:00 AM | TALK 1: Wei Wei, University of Chicago

Natural motion processing by the retina

9:20 AM | TALK 2: Lindsey Glickfeld. Duke University

Feedforward mechanism for pattern selectivity in visual cortex

9:40 AM | TALK 3: Baohua Liu

University of Toronto Mississauga

Deciphering the Role of Brainstem Inhibitory Neurons in Global Motion Processing

10:00 AM | TALK 4: Huizhong Tao

University of Southern California

Encoding of turning direction by a higher-order visual thalamic nucleus

BREAK | 10:20–10:40 AM

Light refreshments will be served.

SESSION 2 | 10:40 AM–12:00 PM

20 minutes per talk • Moderator: Takuma Sonoda

10:40 AM | TALK 5: Cris Niell

University of Oregon

The neural basis of visual processing in the octopus

11:00 AM | TALK 6: Benjamin Scholl

University of Colorado, Anschutz

Visual computation in ferret visual cortex: from circuits to behavior

11:20 AM | TALK 7: Madineh Sarvestani

Cornell / HHMI

Active vision in tree shrews

11:40 AM | TALK 8: Rolf Skyberg

University of Oregon (Niell Lab)

How psychedelics disrupt active vision

LUNCH AND POSTER SESSION | 12:00–2:20 PM 

Join us for lunch and poster session.

SESSION 3 | 2:20–3:40 PM

20 minutes per talk • Moderator: Xiaorong Liu

2:20 PM | TALK 9: Martha Bickford

University of Louisville

Thalamic Circuits for Active Vision

2:40 PM | TALK 10: Chinfei Chen

Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School

Examining the role of the glomerular-like structure in the mouse visual thalamus

3:00 PM | TALK 11: W. Martin Usrey

University of California, Davis

Thalamocortical Circuit Interactions for Vision

3:20 PM | TALK 12: Farran Briggs

National Eye Institute, NIH

Extrastriate visual cortical feedback to first-order thalamus: a driving input?

BREAK | 3:40–4:00 PM

Light refreshments will be served

SESSION 4 | 4:00–5:00 PM

20 minutes per talk • Moderator: Iggy Provencio

4:00 PM | TALK 13: Kristina Nielsen

Johns Hopkins University

Development of cortical networks

4:20 PM | TALK 14: Aaron McGee

University of Arizona – COMP

Neuropil aggrecan, not peri-neuronal nets, limits visual plasticity

4:40 PM | TALK 15: Elise Savier

University of Michigan

Role of interactions between the primary and the secondary visual pathways in vision

5:20-6:00 PM | KEYNOTE ADDRESS | Michael Stryker

KEYNOTE: Michael Stryker

University of California, San Francisco

Competition without competitors in development of the visual cortex

7:30–9:30 PM | DINNER | The Graduate by Hilton Hotel 

RSVP required

Venue: The Graduate by Hilton Charlottesville
1309 West Main Street
Charlottesville, VA 22903

Location: 9th Floor – Piedmont Ballroom

The Graduate by Hilton Charlottesville

A hotel room block is available for VISION 2026 attendees at The Graduate by Hilton Charlottesville.

For information about hotel accommodations, please contact Lisa Ishler at dli3a@virginia.edu.

Venue Update: The Thursday evening Welcome Reception and Friday evening Dinner will take place at The Graduate by Hilton Charlottesville. These events have been relocated from the previously planned venue at the Doyle Hotel.