Progress in understanding the human brain could significantly advance our ability to treat neurological and psychiatric diseases, many of which currently lack effective interventions. Computational modeling and large-scale data analysis are increasingly central to neuroscience, but they are often limited by available computing power.
I want to work on the computer science side of this problem by specializing in High-Performance Computing.
I’m currently an undergrad, doing some research on program autotuning and compilers, which is the closest I can get to HPC at my university right now. This winter, I’ll be doing a Software Engineering internship at Amazon, and after finishing my degree next summer, I’m debating between:
Pursuing a master’s degree in HPC or related areas, to dive deeper into the technical problems.
Building career capital in big tech, and potentially reorienting toward brain-computation work from a stronger industry position later.
Does this seem like a sensible plan? Are there particular pitfalls or opportunities I might be overlooking?
Progress in understanding the human brain could significantly advance our ability to treat neurological and psychiatric diseases, many of which currently lack effective interventions. Computational modeling and large-scale data analysis are increasingly central to neuroscience, but they are often limited by available computing power.
I want to work on the computer science side of this problem by specializing in High-Performance Computing.
I’m currently an undergrad, doing some research on program autotuning and compilers, which is the closest I can get to HPC at my university right now. This winter, I’ll be doing a Software Engineering internship at Amazon, and after finishing my degree next summer, I’m debating between:
Pursuing a master’s degree in HPC or related areas, to dive deeper into the technical problems.
Building career capital in big tech, and potentially reorienting toward brain-computation work from a stronger industry position later.
Does this seem like a sensible plan? Are there particular pitfalls or opportunities I might be overlooking?
Thanks in advance!