About
Note: Sven Dorkenwald's appointment at MIT begins January 2026.
Sven Dorkenwald is an assistant professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and an investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT. He earned a BS in physics and an MS in computer engineering from the University of Heidelberg, followed by a PhD in computer science and neuroscience at Princeton University in 2023 under the mentorship of Sebastian Seung and Mala Murthy. During his doctoral work, he was also a visiting scientist at the Allen Institute and a student researcher at Google Research. Dorkenwald completed his postdoctoral training as a Shanahan Research Fellow at the Allen Institute and the University of Washington, while serving as a Visiting Faculty Researcher at Google Research.
Research
The synaptic connectivity of neurons, their connectome, is fundamental to how networks of neurons function. Sven Dorkenwald develops computational and collaborative tools to map, analyze, and interpret synapse-resolution connectomes. His work has led to large connectomic reconstructions of the fruit fly brain and parts of mammalian brains. The Dorkenwald Lab uses these connectomes to investigate how neuronal circuits are organized and how their structure supports complex computations.