Sam Reiter is currently an assistant professor and leader of the computational neuroethology unit at OIST. His background is in experimental neuroscience, where he has studied diverse topics in a range of model organisms (rat, fly, moth, locust, lizard, turtle, cuttlefish, octopus, squid, ants). He studied neuroscience at Brown University, went on to graduate school in neuroscience at Brown and the US. National Institutes of Health, and most recently worked as a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research. 

Coleoid cephalopods (squids, cuttlefish, and octopuses) are a group of marine invertebrates who have evolved large brains and complex, unique behaviors independently from our own vertebrate lineage. I will discuss what we know about the flexible control of octopus arms, neural-controlled skin patterning for rapid camouflage, and the efficient coupled fin-jet propulsion system, with an eye on how these systems may inform future soft robotic design.