Pedro J. Goncalves

Pedro J. Goncalves is a computational neuroscientist and machine learning researcher serving as Group Leader at VIB-NERF and Associate Professor at KU Leuven. His work bridges theoretical neuroscience and advanced machine learning methodologies to study neural computation.

• Organizational Affiliations
  • VIB-NERF (NERF.be/en#/)
  • KU Leuven (www.kuleuven.be/english/kuleuven)
  • Co-developer of the sbi Python package

His research focuses on simulation-based inference (SBI) for modeling neural circuits, with applications in neurodegeneration studies (e.g., Parkinson's disease), uncertainty quantification in brain imaging, and development of open-source tools for computational neuroscience. Key projects involve:

• Collaborative work with Patrik Verstreken's lab on ML methods for brain-on-chip data analysis
• Leadership in the SBI Hackathon for improving open-source inference workflows
• PhD recruitment via VIB.AI International PhD Call 2025

He actively contributes to community initiatives like the SBI Discord Server and interdisciplinary collaborations across Europe. Publications include work on masked variational autoencoders for neural data modeling in Cell Reports and foundational SBI methodologies.