Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences

The Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences is dedicated to understanding the principles and mechanisms that underlie complex behavior. The center is a state of the art, multi-disciplinary research and academic unit in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. From the microscopic level of cells and organelles to the grand scale of human interaction, our mission is to bring together multiple disciplines and backgrounds such as theoretical physics, complexity science, cognitive psychology, laboratory biology, applied mathematics and philosophy to tackle the most profound questions of brain, the mind, consciousness, and behavior.   


News and Announcements

New study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Schmidt College of Science Launches New Neuroeconomics Graduate Certificate Program

New study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals the moment at which a baby realizes that its movement may have purpose.  See https://neurosciencenews.com/conscious-awareness-babies-agency-23936/  and Meaning from movement and stillness: Signatures of coordination dynamics reveal infant agency | PNAS

 

 

 

 

 

Schmidt College of Science Launches New Neuroeconomics Graduate Certificate Program

Schmidt College of Science Launches New Neuroeconomics Graduate Certificate Program The new Neuroeconomics Graduate Certificate program aims to provide students with the tools needed to analyze, interpret, and apply neuroscientific data in order to understand real-world decisions. Learn more

 

 

 

 

 

Robotic Glove Lends a ‘Hand’ to Relearn Playing Piano After a Stroke

Robotic Glove Lends a ‘Hand’ to Relearn Playing Piano After a Stroke “Playing the piano requires complex and highly skilled movements, and relearning tasks involves the restoration and retraining of specific movements or skills,” said Erik Engeberg, Ph.D., senior author, a professor in FAU’s Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering within the College of Engineering and Computer Science, and a member of the FAU Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences and the FAU Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute. “Our robotic glove is composed of soft, flexible materials and sensors that provide gentle support and assistance to individuals to relearn and regain their motor abilities.”  Read more

 

 

 

Congratulations to Asal Nouri!

Jennifer GiordanoCongratulations to Asal Nouri who successfully defended her doctoral dissertation on Friday, March 24th, 2023 and will graduate at the May 2023 Commencement Ceremony at FAU with the PhD in Complex Systems and Brain Sciences. Asal’s dissertation was completed under the guidance of Dr’s William Hahn and Edward Ester (University of Nevada) with Committee Members Dr’s Summer Sheremata and Elan Barenholtz and entitled “Mechanisms of Selective Attention in Working Memory, Modeled from Human’s Alpha Band Oscillations.” Following graduation Asal will begin a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr’s Chad Forbes and Susan Schneider at FAU. 

 

 

A State-of-the-Art AI Sandbox Gives Ph.D. Student a Boost With Neuroscience Research

Jennifer Giordano Jennifer Giordano, a second year Ph.D. student in the Graduate Neuroscience Training Program and Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences featured on the College of Science web page and the Rubin and Cindy Gruber Sandbox web site Spotlight Stories. Read more.

 

 

 

FAU Receives $1 Million NSF Grant to Empower Women in STEM Faculty

FAU Receives $1 Million NSF Grant to Empower Women in STEM Faculty The grant will help transform faculty diversity and ensure appropriate representation of women in STEM. This grant continues the work of the late Emmanuelle Tognoli, Ph.D., who served as a research professor in FAU’s Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences within the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. Read more.

 

 

 

Congratulations Paul!

Paul MorrisCongratulations to Paul Morris who successfully defended his doctoral dissertation on Friday, September 23, 2022 and will graduate at the December Commencement Ceremony at FAU with the PhD in Complex Systems and Brain Sciences. Paul’s dissertation was completed under the guidance of Dr’s William Hahn and Elan Barenholtz with Committee Member Dr. Paul Peluso (College of Education, FAU) and entitled “Computation in Self-Attention Networks.’

 

 

Congratulations Mike!

Michael TetiCongratulations to Michael Teti who successfully defended his doctoral dissertation on Friday, September 16, 2022 and will graduate at the December Commencement Ceremony at FAU with the PhD in Complex Systems and Brain Sciences. Michael’s dissertation was completed under the guidance of Dr’s Elan Barenholtz and William Hahn with Committee Members Dr’s William Alexander, Benjamin Migliori, (Los Alamos National Laboratory) and Garrett Kenyon (Los Alamos National Laboratory) and entitled “Cracking the Sparse Code: Lateral Competition Forms Robust Vl-Like Representations in Convolutional Neural Networks.

 

Congratulations Dr. Aliza Sloan

Dr. Aliza Sloan

Dr. Aliza Sloan and her Co-Advisors Profs. Scott Kelso and Nancy Jones enjoy a moment prior to her 'hooding' at the Summer Commencement Ceremony for the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science on August 9, 2022 (photo courtesy Zach Greathouse). Aliza's doctoral research "Development of Infant Agency" was conducted in the Human Brain & Behavior Laboratory (HBBL) at the Center for Complex Systems & Brain Sciences. She is hoping to continue her work in the newly developed SOAL (Self-Organizing Agency Lab) which will be devoted to understanding how agency emerges in human beings at both behavioral and neural levels of organization.

 

In Memoriam: Dr. Emmanuelle Tognoli

Emmanuelle Tognoli

Sadly, Dr. Emmanuelle Tognoli passed away in the early morning hours of Saturday, April 23rd 2022 following a valiant struggle to overcome a rare and aggressive cancer, which ultimately took her life. Dr. Tognoli was a Research Professor in the Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences and Research Affiliate Professor in the Department of Physics. Her passing is a great loss for both programs. Dr. Tognoli was a very talented scientist, a respected colleague, and a beloved mentor and role model for her many students. She will be dearly missed by all who knew her. Read more.

 

 

 

 

Young Seon Shin Awarded PhD in Complex Systems and Brain Sciences

Seon Shin

Congratulations to Young Seon “Sunny” Shin who successfully defended her doctoral dissertation on Friday, March 25, 2022 and graduated at the May Commencement Ceremony at FAU with the PhD in Complex Systems and Brain Sciences. Sunny’s dissertation was completed under the guidance of Dr. Summer Sheremata and Committee Members Dr’s William Alexander, Hang Sang ‘Sammy’ Hong, and Eddie Ester (University of Nevada) and entitled “EEG Signals Represent Updated Memory Representations in Visual Working Memory". Following graduation, Sunny has taken a postdoctoral position with Dr. Stephen Coombes in the Laboratory for Rehabilitation Neuroscience at the University of Florida.

 

 Rachel St. Clair Awarded PhD in Complex Systems and Brain Sciences

Rachel S

Congratulations to Rachel St. Clair who successfully defended her doctoral dissertation on Friday, March 18, 2020 and graduated with the PhD in Complex Systems and Brain Sciences at the May Commencement Ceremony at FAU. Rachel’s dissertation was completed under the guidance of Drs. Elan Barenholtz & William Hahn and Susan Schneider (Committee member) and entitled “Preserving Knowledge in Simulated Behavioral Action Loops". Following graduation, Rachel is working with a hi-tech start-up company in AGI.

 

 

J. Alex Clark Awarded PhD in Complex Systems and Brain Sciences

J. Alex Clark

Congratulations to Alex Clark who successfully defended his doctoral dissertation on Friday, February 25, 2022 and was awarded the PhD in Complex Systems and Brain Sciences at the May Commencement Ceremony at FAU. Alex’s dissertation was completed under the guidance of Drs. Elan Barenholtz & William Hahn and William Alexander (Committee member) and entitled “Behavioral Analysis of Deep Convolutional Neural Networks for Image Classification". Following graduation, Alex is working for a hi-tech start-up company in Boca Raton.

 

 

Sleep Research Earns FAU Scientist "Alzheimer's Association" Award

c varela award FAU Department of Psychology and Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences Assistant Professor, Carmen Varela, Ph.D., recently received the Alzheimer’s Association’s “Research Fellowship to Promote Diversity” award to investigate the relationship between sleep patterns and one’s overall brain health. Read more.




 

 


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What We Do

 

Research in the Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences addresses fundamental questions in neuroscience from the perspective of complex systems. Learn more about us.