Post date: Jan 17, 2015 8:47:21 AM
SCS DISTINGUISHED LECTURE
Thursday, 22 January 2015
Rashid Auditorium - 4401 Gates&Hillman Centers
- 3:40 pm - Distinguished Donuts (outside the auditorium)
- 4:00 pm - Lecture
Interim Provost, and
Dr. Frederick A. Schwertz Distinguished Professor of Life Sciences
Carnegie Mellon University
Brain Teasers for Computer Scientists
The purpose of this talk is to discuss how some of the most important challenges for understanding the structure and function of the brain might be addressed by clever application of computer science. I want to convince computer scientists that neuroscience provides a domain of interesting problems related to data analysis large scale simulation also related to fundamental questions about how certain problems are solved by biological computational devices.
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Nathan Urban, the Dr. Frederick A. Schwertz Distinguished Professor of Life Sciences, began serving as the interim provost of Carnegie Mellon University on July 1, 2014. Prior to becoming interim Provost, Dr. Urban had been head of the Department of Biological Sciences in CMU's Mellon College of Science since 2010. Dr. Urban joined CMU as a faculty member in 2002 after four years as a research fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany.
Urban received his bachelor's degree in neuroscience from the University of Pittsburgh, studied mathematics and philosophy as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, and earned his doctorate in neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh. In 2005, he was selected by Scientific American as one of the 50 leaders in science and technology. His research interests are in the area of neuroscience with a focus on neurophysiology and computational neuroscience.