SCION is a 10-week summer research program that introduces first-year undergraduates to connectomics—the mapping of neural circuits at synaptic resolution. Interns work with a state-of-the-art whole-brain electron microscopy dataset of the larval zebrafish paired with functional activity imaging. This effort is part of a broader collaboration across Harvard University, Google Research, and HHMI Janelia, led by the Engert and Lichtman laboratories.

Interns contribute to active research questions in neural structure and function. Using high-resolution EM data, students will reconstruct microcircuits, annotate images to support machine-learning segmentation, and/or analyze circuit architecture using code. Each student joins a mentor-led project designed around a specific behavior or computation in the zebrafish brain.

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No prior research or programming experience is required. Interns receive intensive training during the first two weeks and gain increasing independence as the summer progresses.

If you’d like to see the type of data we work with, you can view whole-brain electron microscopy here, and whole-brain functional imaging here.