Project summary

Hi! I'm a computational neuroscience fellow at the NIH and a recent Howard University graduate. My co-author and I recently had our research, Perturb-LM, accepted to the RCMLR workshop at NeurIPS 2026 in Sydney! Our project explores whether biomedical AI models are actually learning meaningful biology or relying on shortcuts in the data. We've been working to make these evaluations more reliable, transparent, and accessible.

I'm hoping to raise $1,500–$2,050 to help cover travel so I can share our work in person, connect with other researchers, and bring new ideas back to our project. As an early-career scientist, this opportunity would mean a lot!

Repository: https://github.com/siamakenna/perturb-LM

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

My biggest goal is to share our research and learn from others doing meaningful work in biomedical AI and model reliability. I'm especially excited to receive feedback on our experiments, meet potential collaborators, and explore how we can make AI evaluations more biologically meaningful. I'll bring what I learn back to my co-author and use it to guide our next research steps!

How will you know it worked?

I'd love to leave with a few meaningful connections, constructive feedback, and new ideas we can actually put into practice. If I can bring back two or three actionable improvements to our research and build relationships that continue beyond the conference, I'd consider that a success!

How will this funding be used?

I'm requesting up to $2,050 to help cover an affordable round-trip flight from the DC area to Sydney and basic travel expenses. I am not requesting accommodation or registration funding

• Airfare: $1,830

• Meals: $120 ($40/day for 3 days)

• Local transportation: $100

Total: $2,050

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?

I work alongside an engineering collaborator on Perturb-LM, where we've developed open-source benchmarking tools, investigated experimental biases, and recently had our work accepted to NeurIPS, NECB and more! I've presented research at scientific conferences before, and I'm really excited about the opportunity to represent our work internationally. I'm the only team member requesting travel support through this proposal.

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

If I can't secure enough funding or the necessary travel approvals, I'll likely participate virtually instead. Our research will absolutely continue either way! I'd just miss out on the in-person conversations, mentorship, and connections that can be especially valuable at this stage of my career.

How much money have you raised in the last 12 months, and from where?

I have raised 0 funding unfortunately but hope to update this amount!