Our Story
From a simple idea to a global movement.
Our story spans virtual conferences, the creation of Neuromatch Academy due to COVID-19 shutting down traditional in person summer schools, and a global community committed to inclusivity, collaboration, and open scientific learning.

Building Community
When the COVID-19 pandemic made in-person gatherings impossible, Neuromatch reimagined scientific conferences online (2020-2022). These virtual events not only connected researcher during challenging times but also created an enduring model for accessible, global scientific collaboration.


Launching the Academy
During the pandemic, organizers of traditional computational science summer schools came together. Neuromatch Academy emerged from this collaboration as a globally accessible, mentored program, empowering students and early-career researchers regardless of geography, finances, or local resources.
Why "Neuromatch"?
We started by running virtual computational neuroscience conferences where we 'matched' attendees to sessions and each other using algorithms developed by our co-founders.
Since then we've refined and built upon these algorithms and use them to today in field building and 'matching' TAs ad students into learning pods.


Our logo
From notebook sketches to a global movement, Neuromatch’s logo reflects the collaborative spirit at the heart of our community.
Early designs by Titipat Achakulvisut and collaborators helped shape not just a visual identity, but the ethos of an open, inclusive, and globally connected education movement.
2020Founding
Neuromatch Conference and Neuromatch Academy were founded! Built our first course, Computational Neuroscience, and ran several virtual conferences.2021Adding a second course
We introduced our second course, Deep Learning, as we recognised the need for more geographically accessible learning opportunities. NMC ran several more virtual conferences, leveraging our matching algorithm.2022Sustaining Operations
as Neuromatch grew, we welcomed our first full-time employees, including CEO and Program Director. Ran the final NMC Conference and sunset this area of work. Open Publishing, now Scholar Nexus, was founded.2023Growth
Launch of Computational Tools for Climate Science Course (Climatematch) and the Impact Scholars Program, offering mentored research experiences.2024Expanding
We launched our NeuroAI Course and expanded the Impact Scholars Program to all courses. Built and ran our Open Science course in collaboration with NASA.2025Field Building
Developed our Field Building pillar through MEXA, including running our first Research Accelerator program.
Neuromatch’s journey is shaped by people, ideas, and a commitment to accessible education. These selected articles explore our history, key milestones, and how our approach has evolved over time.
Press and other materials
- INCF hosting of NMA
- CellPress article on NMA format
- Nature Machine Intelligence editorial
- Nature story about NMA overcoming Iran sanctions
- Neuromatch Academy Experience - a Medium article written by students
- Simon's Foundation NMA write-upt
- Richard Gao's blog post
- Knowing Neurons interview with Dr. Megan Peters about NMA
- NMA receives honorable mentions from BiasWatchNeuro
- Mark Humphries' 2020 review - mentioning Neuromatch as a positive thing
- SuperDataScience interview of Konrad for NMA 2021
- Queen's FHS feature story about NMA
- Brain Inspired podcast 1 - Machine Learning
- Brain Inspired podcast 2 - Dynamical Systems
- Brain Inspired podcast 3 - Normative models of brain & mind
- For love of neuroscience: The Neuromatch movement - a love letter by Konrad Kording
- NMA student reflections by Joao Araujo
- Neuromatch wins the 2022 Neuro - Irv and Helga Cooper Foundation Open Science Prize (international)
- Democratisation of neuroscience education by Sabina Nowakowska, a NMA participant experience
- Networking for the next generation of neuroscientists - a UCI story on NMA









