EMBRIO Summer Schools

2026 Joint Symposium Workshops

Preceding the Advancing Morphogenetic Biosciences and Bioengineering Symposium taking place oon June 25 are the mini workshops the afternoon of June 22, and a full team-based workshop during June 23-24. All workshops and the symposium take place on the University of Notre Dame campus in South Bend, Indiana. See the Symposium page for both workshop and symposium registration and events details.

Training and Team Workshops

T4CT (Tools4Cells&Tissues) Design Challenge Workshop, June 23-24 all day

Participants will engage in small teams of experimentalists and computationalists (students, postdocs, faculty) in a Design-Build-Test-Learn challenge using recent research biological data and images. Team formation and initial overview and data access will occur prior to the workshop to allow for initial discussion and team planning. Specific problems and data examples for each project will be posted in May. The workshop is guided by Faculty Thrust Project Leaders from EMBRIO Institute, and the RECODE Project at Notre Dame.

Concurrent mini-workshops available Monday afternoon, June 22nd

These workshops will provide new tools, methods, and insights that could be useful during the full design challenge workshop.

Mini-Workshop: AI Applications for Biological Image Analysis and Parameter Optimization, Monday, June 22nd (1 - 5pm)

This four hour workshop will introduce participants to practical AI methods for biological research, with a focus on image analysis using deep learning and Cellpose, and parameter optimization using invertible neural networks (INNs) and Bayesian optimization.

Lead instructors: Senior Research Scientists, Linlin Li and Nilay Kumar, Purdue University. View full workshop details and agenda (PDF).

Mini-Workshop: From Pixels to Pipelines: Practical Image Analysis with Fiji/ImageJ, Monday June 22nd (1-5pm)

This hands-on workshop introduces participants to practical image analysis using Fiji / ImageJ, moving from fundamental imaging concepts to reproducible analysis pipelines.

Lead instructor: David Gazzo, Ph.D. Candidate, Zartman Lab, Notre Dame. View full workshop details and agenda (PDF)

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Archived: 2025 Summer School

Theme: "AI in Research, Data Management Best Practices, and Introduction to Biological Modeling Tools"

Dates: June 9-11

Location: MJIS 1097, Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette

Summer School Agenda (PDF, with session descriptions)

Partner Member Information:

Lodging for Partner Members: Purdue Union Club. Rooms will be reserved for you. Contact: Jen Goad, [goad3@purdue.edu]

Walking from Union Club Hotel to MJIS 1097: 20 minute Walking Map

Map of Parking Lot nearest Martin Jischke Hall of Biomedical Engineering. Requires parking privileges. For non-Purdue employees, Jen Goad is your contact regarding parking privileges.

Travel to Purdue Website: (Shuttles, Airports, Campus Maps, Parking)

Archived 2024 Summer School

Title: Communicating your research with novice audiences through computational media

Dates: July 8-10

Location: MJIS 1097, Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette

Participants will identify a topic of their research (or teaching) that they want to make accessible to novice audiences. Following best practices of learning design or mentoring, participants will create a product (e.g., a computational Colab notebook, a digital poster, a Prezi presentation, or similar) to teach or communicate their selected topic to broader audiences. The products will be broadly disseminated through the Institute.

Agenda (draft)