Xitong Liang is an Assistant Professor at the School of Life Sciences at Peking University. Liang is also an Investigator at the IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, the Center for Quantitative Biology and the Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences. Using cephalopods (e.g., octopus, squid, and cuttlefish) as a novel model system, his research explores the diversity and evolution of animal behavior, AI for neuroscience, and brain-inspired AI. He received a bachelor’s degree in biology from Peking University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Washington University in St. Louis, USA. Liang conducted his postdoctoral research with Prof. Gilles Laurent at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Germany.

For his Berggruen Fellowship, Liang plans to explore alternative paths towards intelligence. With their uniquely complex and independently evolved brains, cephalopods offer a rare opportunity to gain insights into the evolution of intelligence and serve as a lens to reflect on human self-awareness through “the other mind.”