Project Summary Neuroscience has been revolutionized by the widespread adoption of two experimental methods: optogenetics, where light is used to control neural activity, and calcium imaging, where light is used to monitor neural activity. ‘Sculpted Light in The Brain’ refers to the optical process of changing the shape of light to be more useful for both imaging and stimulation purposes and is a fundamental theme of this conference. With the advent of these approaches conventional electrical recording and stimulation tools are being progressively complemented and sometimes replaced by these light-based approaches. However, progress is still needed for these optical techniques to reach the speed, specificity, and range necessary to understand neural activity. This meeting is timely since this new generation of advanced light-based biological tools is fundamentally transforming how neuroscientists interrogate the nervous system, relying on the fusion of computational and optical methods with neuroscience. The repeated success of the SLB meetings highlights the timely nature of this topic and the extreme interest in the topic. Sculpted Light in the Brain (2017) was originally designed as a brief (1 day) local conference at University of California at Berkeley. However, due to overwhelming interest as well as the engagement and commitment of the organizers, the meeting was rapidly expanded to a reoccurring international meeting series, having meetings in London (2019), Boston (2022), and now Paris (2024). Feedback was overwhelmingly positive, and the conference was highlighted in Neurophotonics (Shanker et al 2017), spawned a dedicated research grant just for meeting attendees (The Kavli SLB Innovation Grant (2022)), has been spoken of as a model of conference childcare support, and sparked enduring scientific collaborations. The program for the 2024 Sculpted Light in the Brain meeting was designed by an interdisciplinary, international committee guided by suggestions from the field. The meeting organizers include four returning members from the 2022 and 2019 organization teams, as well as 3 new members. Four of the seven meeting organizers are women, and two are based internationally. They are aided by the continued support of the SLB Board (the original six organizers) and an advisory group of senior scientists. This meeting will generate future collaboration opportunities by gathering established scientists and the next generation of researchers from the fields of optics, computer science, and neuroscience in a discussion focused on developing future light-based technologies that will enable real time communication with the living brain. This forward-looking unique new conference satisfies an urgent need in the scientific community that is currently completely unmet, since there are no other standalone meetings directly dedicated to this rapidly growing scientific area.