Janet Blanks
Director, Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences, Core Facilitator in the Neuroscience and Behavior Science module, and the Biomedical Science Administration.
Research Area: Gene therapy, retinal degeneration, neuroprotection in the retina, mammalian retinal development and differentiation.

Steven L. Bressler
Professor, Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences and Psychology.
Research Area: Cognitive NeuroDynamics: Investigation of cognitive processing through analysis of the large-scale dynamics of activity in the cerebral cortex using EEG, MEG, LFP.

Gonzalo C. de Guzman
Research Associate Professor, Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences.
Research Area: Theoretical Physics. Dynamical analysis of cooperative behavior in neural and human motor coordination.

Silke Dodel
Research Assistant Professor, Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences.
Research Area: Dynamical systems, neural networks, functional connectivity, graph theory, brain imaging.

Armin Fuchs
Associate Professor, Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences and Physics and Biomedical Sciences.
Research Area: Analysis of large scale brain activity patterns and combining noninvasive recording technologies, i.e. EEG, MEG and functional MRI.

Howard S. Hock
Professor, Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences and Psychology.
Research Area: Perception of motion

Viktor K. Jirsa
Associate Professor, Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences and Physics.
Research Area: Self-organization and Synergetics. Nonlinear dynamics and chaos. Modeling of single neurons and large-scale neural networks. Analysis of complex systems.

J. A. Scott Kelso
Eminent Scholar in Science, Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences and Professor of Psychology and Biological Sciences.
Research Area: Mechanisms of self-organization underlying the coordination of brain and behavior.

Edward Large
Associate Professor, Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences and Psychology.
Research Area: Dynamics of human perception and attention, auditory perception, robotics, and music cognition and the design of autonomous agents utilizing the principles of nonlinear dynamical systems.

Larry S. Liebovitch
Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Programs in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Professor, Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences, Psychology, Center for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, and joint appointment in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Biomedical Science.
Research Area: Theoretical and experimental studies of systems with many strongly interacting parts, including molecular, genetic, physiological, and psychological systems.

Abhijit Pandya
Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, joint appointment at the Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences.

Gary W. Perry
Dean, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Professor, Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences and Professor of Psychology.
Research Area: Neurobiology. Molecular and cellular mechanisms of neural development, growth and regeneration.

Howard Prentice
Joint Appointment, Associate Professor, Charles E. Schmidt College of Biomedical Science, joint appointment at the Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences.
Research Area: Ischemic adaptations, Neurodegenerative disease, Brain anoxia, Mitochondrial dysfunction and aging processes.

Emmanuelle Tognoli
Research Assistant Professor, Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences.
Research Area: EEG Coordination Dynamics of human behavior: large-scale integration within and between brains.

Betty Tuller
Professor, Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences and Psychology.
Research Area: Experimental Psychology Dynamics of speech, learning, and memory in normal and clinical populations.

Robert P. Vertes
Professor, Center for Complex Systems and Psychology.
Research Area: Neurophysiology/Neuroanatomy. Functional organization of the brainstem and its role in controlling activity of the forebrain.

Jang Yen Wu
Professor and Schmidt Senior Fellow, Charles E. Schmidt College of Biomedical Science, joint appointment at the Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences.
Research Area: Neuroscience, neurotransmitters and neurological disorders.

Dawei Dong
Research Associate Professor
Research Area: Computational Neuroscience, Integrative Neurobiology and fundamental theories of how the nervous system codes and uses sensory information.

Harold Friend
Neurologist - Affiliate Research Professor

Nathan Nachlas
Otolaryngology - Affiliate Research Assistant Professor

Fred Steinberg
Research Professor, Director and owner of University MRI - Boca Raton

Timothy Valk
Endocrinologist - Affiliate Research Professor

Rhona Frankel
Program Assistant
Provides general reception and administrative assistance for students and faculty members. Coordinates recruiting of new Ph.D. students and post doctoral fellows. Maintains records and follows up on their needs. Assists with budget tracking, payroll certifications, prepares purchase requisitions and follow up needs. Approves PCard transactions. Coordinates travel arrangements and reimbursements for faculty and students. Updates and maintains database for published journal article reprints. Coordinates special events with visiting lecturers and scholars. New duties include assisting in Neuroscience program.

Keyla Thamsten
Budget Coordinator

William McLean
Research Engineer
Development of instrumentation with microcontrollers and sensors. Research into Analog Computation. Interests in digital signal processing, partial differential equations and stochastic processes.

Felix Almonte

Walter Hoover

Kaushik Majumdar

Meltem Ballan
My motivation is to understand the philosophical and physical aspect of how brain works and apply this knowledge to a specific problem. I have started to work on a project of great significance whose results may help to diagnose dyscalculia from a new perspective. Dyscalculia is a disorder in children which is difficult to diagnose since those suffering from this typically have normal and even higher IQ levels. In the current stage of the project I have been analyzing EEG data recorded at University in Groningen, Holland. Trying to understand the components and putting them together is a challenging task, and my first objective is to characterize the brain activity, i.e. the neural dynamics and its complexity associated with the functional neural processes that breakdown in Dyscalculia. Summer School:Last summer I was promoted a summer school in Marseille which improved my understanding of brain dynamics and gave me a general perspective of data analysis techniques. International Collaborations: Recently we have started an international collaboration with a well known researcher, Avishai Henik from Department of Psychology of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, in dyscalculia in an attempt to compare and combine results with data from patients.

Daniela Benites - Visiting PhD student
I am a doctoral student in Psychology at UFRGS, a federal university of South Brazil. I came to CCSBS, more specifically to the Human Brain and Behavior Lab, with a scholarship from the Sandwich Program - CAPES. For a year, I will be studying coordination dynamics and working in a research about intentional social coordination. My main research theme being the complementary pair self~other and construction of identity as a self process.

Heather Chapin
Using fMRI, I have been exploring the relationship between performance expression in music and the reported emotional and neural responses of listeners. I have also investigated the effects of attention on complex rhythm perception, rehearsal, and production using fMRI, EEG, and behavioral measures.

Paul Ferrari

Reyna Gordon
My current research is focused on the relationship between meter/rhythm in speech and music. Over the past year, I have conducted a behavioral and EEG experiment that examines how stress patterns in song can facilitate or hinder intelligibility of sung language.

Muhilan Mahalingam
During the current academic year, I have been involved in writing up my first project dealing with visuomotor processing in monkeys performing a categorization task, and have been following up on comments from the co-authors. A poster was prepared and presented at the Society for Neuroscience last fall to communicate the results obtained. During late fall and throughout Spring, I have been working on my second project studying directional interactions between parietal and low level visual areas on MEG data obtained from human subjects.

Michael Marshall

Ed Modestino

Summer Rankin

Colin Reveley

Young-Ah Rho
My major research is to investigate spatiotemporal dynamics of a large scale brain network, particularly to understand how connectivity of a neural network determines the dynamics of information processing in the rest state. Using realistic primate brain connectivity, it has been investigating the properties of the network dynamics under consideration of transmission speeds and noise. Mathematical and numerical methods such as linear stability analysis, solving stochastic delay differential equation (SDDE) and signal processing analysis are used.

Craig Richter
Over the past year I have been working on two projects. The first is the preparation of a paper for publication. This work shows the functional modulation of early striate activity by top-down anticipatory influences in the ventral visual stream of 3 monkeys. The second project is a collaboration with Dr. Charles Gray of the University of Montana. This study investigates the interaction of the dorsal and ventral visual streams and the prefrontal cortex during a visual working memory task. We have prepared multiple grants based on this work.

Tracy Romano
My research interests involve understanding neuronal networks of cognitive processes in the brain. One project I am working on involves LFP responses in Rhesus Macaque monkeys during a visual-spatial attention task. Using Grander Causality we are examining top-down processes influence on visual processing systems and visuomotor responses. In the future, I will also be working with auditory and somatosensory systems.

Stephen Sedita
As the current fMRI research coordinator my work involves overseeing and assisting with fMRI data collection as well as assisting with basic analytic and design issues. My experimental work spans several areas, including human interval timing, rhythmic vs. discrete motor generation, and differences in the communication between brain areas at rest versus during continual task performance.

Wei Tang
I am interested in how brain regions interact to generate cognitive functions. Currently I'm working on a data set from fMRI scans of people doing a visual spatial attention task. Hypothetically the higher-level control regions in the brain is thought to modulate the lower-level visual regions and make the latter prepared for incoming stimuli. We identify this pre-stimulus influence using a statistical tool named 'Granger Causality Analysis', based on which further statistical approaches can give us a deeper view toward large-scale cortical networks in cognitive functions.

Marc Velasco

Jeanna Winchester
I have been working with Aging Adults (ages 45-55yrs), Older Adults (70-90yrs) and Older Adults suffering from Alzheimer's disease (70-90yrs). We have collected functional MRI, Diffusion Tensor Imaging, and Hi-resolution Volumetric Anatomical data for each subject. All subjects receive extensive neuropsychological assessments including the Ray Auditory Verbal Learning Test, the Standard Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale and the Mini-Mental State Exam. The patient population (Alzheimer's) was also prescreened using Positron Emission Tomograph. This work is the culmination of the predoctoral thesis and will be submitted for the Defense sometime this year.

Carey Witkov
My research involves nonlinear resonance and its application to hearing. Unlike linear oscillators in which resonance is easily sustained, Duffing-type nonlinear oscillators slip in and out of resonance because their frequency of oscillation changes with their amplitude. Sustained resonance (autoresonance) is possible in Duffing-type nonlinear oscillators by sweeping the drive frequency or an oscillator parameter to maintain a match between drive and oscillator frequency. A paper was submitted by Dr. Liebovitch and myself to the Journal of Sound and Vibration, entitled Predicting optimal drive sweep rates for autoresonance in Duffing-type oscillators: A beat method using the Teager-Kaiser instantaneous frequency. An experiment is planned with Dr. Ali Danesh to test a possible role for autoresonance in otoacoustic emission.

Marmaduke Woodman
I am applying Granger causality, mode decomposition and phase response techniques to understand the dynamics of neural networks