Mission

Housed within the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, the Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences at Florida Atlantic University was founded in August 1985 by J.A. Scott Kelso. The overarching objective of the Center is to understand the principles and mechanisms underlying complex behavior on all levels, from molecules and cells to whole brain functioning and even brains (people) working together. Such understanding is crucial not only for the 'normal brain' but to the anticipation, treatment and rehabilitation of the many neurological and neuropsychiatric diseases and 'disorders' that afflict society from early childhood to old age. The Center contains state-of-the-art research facilities in the areas of human brain and cognition, neural growth and development, cellular neurophysiology, biophysics, and theoretical and computational neuroscience.

A central focus of the Center is our Ph.D. program, created to provide a multi-disciplinary training program with the goal of creating a 'new breed' of scientist who can unite theory and experiment, computational modeling and complex data collection and analysis using the latest technologies. Our graduates have pursued postdoctoral research at Institutions such as Harvard, Brown, Brandeis, New York University, the Salk Institute, and the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego in addition to private industry such as IBM. Many now hold university professorships and leadership positions in teaching and research in the U.S. and around the world.