Research Projects

• Semantic cognitive mapping of natural language (with G.A. Ascoli, T.T. Sheehan and C.P. Sherrill)

• GMU BICA: an integrated self-aware cognitive architecture (with K.A. De Jong, G.A. Ascoli, M.A. Coletti, R. Lakatos, D. Sharma, T. Bhimdi)

• Cognitive constructor: An intelligent tutoring system based on a biologically inspired cognitive architecture (with K.A. De Jong, A. Kitsantas, M.L. Kalbfleisch, N.Dabbagh, E.E. Peters, and L. Schrum)

• Toward the Decade of the Mind: a scientific perspective on the hard problem of consciousness and its quantification (with H. Morowitz, K.A. De Jong, G.A. Ascoli, and M.L. Kalbfleisch)

• Statistical algorithmic description of neuronal morphology: hippocampal principal cell dendrites and axons (with G.A. Ascoli)

• Spontaneous compactification of the spatial map in a continuous attractor neural network model: a possible mechanism of the emergence of grid cells in rodent medial entorhinal cortex

• Theoretical capacity and practical applications of continuous-attractor neural networks storing multiple multi-dimensional cognitive maps

Slides from selected talks

• Computational semantics: the ultimate frontier. Guest lecture for the GMU Spring 2009 course of Dr. Harold Morowitz on Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, given on Monday, March 23, 2009

• Bringing consciousness to neuroscience: a computational perspective. Krasnow Monday Seminars, Fairfax, VA, February 11, 2008

Recent / upcoming (co-)organized events

• BICA-2009: Washington, D.C., November 5-7, 2009

• First AAAI Fall Symposium on BICA: Washington, D.C., November 7-9, 2008

• AAAI Workshop on Metareasoning: Discussion of Models of Self

• AGI-08: Memphis, TN

• 2008 Northern Virginia Regional Brain Bee: A neuroscience contest for grades 9 – 12

Teaching

Journal cover awards

Selected links

• Always remembering Tucson...
   
• Becoming a US citizen (2004)