We all know intuitively what we mean by motion. Motion is change, evolution, development. A dove soars across a turquoise noon-day sky; a meteor plunges earthward from the night-black heavens; a train derails and falls off a bridge, plummeting to the jagged rocks below. The world is alive with motion.
-- Michael A. Morrison, Understanding Quantum Physics

Ashvin Shah     ashvin [at] gmail [dot] com I am now a postdoctoral research fellow in the lab of Jerome Sanes, Department of Neuroscience, Brown University. PhD (2008), Neuroscience and Behavior Program, University of Massachusetts Amherst. I did my research in the Autonomous Learning Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, and was patiently-advised by Andrew G. Barto. The thesis is called Biologically-Based Functional Mechanisms of Motor Skill Acquisition (click here for abstract and links to pdf's). BA (1997), Wesleyan University, major in Physics.

Academic Info

• Areas of interest include skill acquisition, reinforcement learning, decision-making, computational neuroscience, and motor control.
• Research statement (pdf)
• Peeps Research, with Marc Pickett I

Publications

• Shah, A. and Barto, A.G. (2009)
  Effect on Movement Selection of an Evolving Sensory Representation: A Multiple Controller Model of Skill Acquisition
  Brain Research, vol. 1299 (special issue on Computational Cognitive Neuroscience II, edited by Sue Becker and Nathaniel Daw), pages 55--73.
  [ pdf ]


• Shah, A., Fagg, A. H., and Barto, A. G. (2004)
  Cortical Involvement in the Recruitment of Wrist Muscles
  Journal of Neurophysiology vol. 91, pages 2445 - 2456
  [ pdf ]


• Fagg, A. H., Shah, A., and Barto, A. G. (2002)
  A Computational Model of Muscle Recruitment for Wrist Movements
  Journal of Neurophysiology vol. 88, pages 3348 - 3358
  [ pdf ]


• Submitted / in preparation
  
  
  
  • Shah, A., Fagg, A.G., and Barto, A.G.
    A Hierarchical Optimization Account of Coarticulation in Motor Skill Acquisition
    (In preparation)


• Posters
  
  
  
  • Shah, A., and Barto, A.G. (2007)
    Effect on Movement Selection of Evolving Sensory Representation
    poster presented at the Third Annual Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Conference (CCNC07), in conjunction with Dynamical Neuroscience XV, November 1 -- 2, San Diego, CA.
    [ pdf ]
  
  
  • Shah, A., and Barto, A.G. (2007)
    Functional Mechanisms of Motor Skill Acquisition
    poster presented at the Sixteenth Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting (CNS*2007), July 7th - 12th, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Abstract published in BMC Neuroscience 2007, 8(Suppl 2):P203 (6 July 2007)
    [ abstract | pdf ]
  
  
  • Shah, A., Barto, A.G., and Fagg, A.H (2006)
    Biologically-Based Functional Mechanisms of Coarticulation
    poster presented at Neural Control of Movement Conference, May 2-7, 2006, Key Biscayne, FL.
    [ pdf ]
  
  
  • Shah, A., Fagg, A. H., and Barto, A. G. (2002)
    Cortical Involvement in the Recruitment of Wrist Muscles
    poster presented at Neural Control of Movement Conference, April 14-21, 2002, Naples, FL
    [ abstract | pdf ]
  
  
  • Shah, A., Fagg, A. H., and Barto, A. G. (2001)
    A Computational Model of Muscle Recruitment for Wrist Movements
    poster presented at Neural Control of Movement Conference, March 25-30, 2001, Seville, Spain
    [ abstract | pdf ]

Links (non-academic)