Dr. Rui Costa

Biography

Rui Ponte Costa leads the Neural & Machine Learning group at the University of Oxford. His research primarily focuses on understanding the brain's computational models of learning, specifically exploring cortical circuits, neuromodulation, and subcortical regions that enable credit assignment. He completed his undergraduate studies in Computer Science at the University of Coimbra in Portugal and pursued a PhD in Computational Neuroscience and Machine Learning at the University of Edinburgh, collaborating closely with both theoretical and experimental groups. Rui has had visiting research positions at University College London and McGill University. Following his postdoctoral research in computational neuroscience and machine learning at the University of Oxford, he established collaborations with leading figures in the field. Rui briefly worked with Walter Senn in Bern, Switzerland, and collaborated with Yoshua Bengio at MILA in Canada. In 2018, he moved to the University of Bristol to establish his own research group, returning to the University of Oxford in 2023 to expand his initiatives in neuro-AI research.

Research Interests

Experience