Chris Eliasmith
Professor

Canada Research Chair in Theoretical Neuroscience

PhD, Washington University in St. Louis (Philosophy, Neuroscience, Psychology)
MA, Waterloo (Philosophy)
BASc, Waterloo (Systems Design Engineering)
P. Eng

Office: HH 331
Extension: 32638
Email: celiasmith@uwaterloo.ca
Webpage: http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~celiasmi/

Jointly appointed to Systems Design Engineering
Cross-appointed to Computer Science

Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind, Theoretical Neuroscience, and Cognitive Science

Academic Biography
My formal academic background is interdisciplinary, spanning engineering, philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience. My research reflects this diversity but is tied together by its focus on the workings of the mind.

My early philosophical work critiqued the dynamical hypothesis in cognitive science, and discussed related issues of computation and the architecture of the mind. My PhD thesis suggests a new theory of meaning which draws heavily on neural considerations. More recently I have written on these topics as well as issues related to embodiment/embeddedness, categorization, information theory, neural modeling, statistical representation, and the integration of neuroscience and psychology. In short, my work has been in philosophy of mind and philosophy of science.

My philosophical work has been paralleled by work in theoretical neuroscience. With Charles Anderson, I have developed a general method for building large-scale, biologically detailed models of neural systems. I have applied this method in a variety of contexts, including rat navigation, working memory, lamprey swimming, hemineglect, and language-based reasoning.

Selected Publications
(A complete list of publications and links to them is available on my webpage).

2008: Dynamics, control, and cognition. In P. Robbins and M. Aydede (Eds.) Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition. Cambridge University Press.
2007: How to build a brain: From function to implementation. Synthese.
2006: Is the brain a quantum computer? Cognitive Science. (with Litt, Kroon, Weinstein and Thagard)
2005: A unified approach to building and controlling spiking attractor networks. Neural Computation.
2004: Learning context sensitive logical inference in a neurobiological simulation. In Levy, S. and Gayler, R. (eds.). Compositional Connectionism in Cognitive Science.
2003: Moving beyond metaphors: Understanding the mind for what it is. Journal of Philosophy. C(10):493-520.

Selected Grants, Fellowships & Awards
2007: Leader's Opportunity Fund (CFI/OIT)
2006: Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Theoretical Neuroscience
2006: NSERC/OpenText Corp CRD Research Grant
2005: NSERC Discovery Grant
2003: CFI New Opportunities Grant
2000: McDonnell Project Grant for Philosophy and the Neurosciences

Current Research
I am currently director of the Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience, and head of the Computational Neuroscience Research Group (CNRG) in that Centre. My recent work focuses on integrating neural and psychological explanations of behaviour, theories of meaning, and mental representation. My additional interests include models and theories in science, theories of computation, dynamical systems, and statistical modeling.

Recent Graduate Supervision and Teaching

Graduate Theses:

• The Measure of Meaning
• Clean-up Memory in Biologically Plausible Networks
• A Concern for Embodiment
• Computational Modelling of the Basal Ganglia in Parkinson's Disease
• Timing and the Temporal Parietal Cortex

Courses, Seminars, and Areas:

• Mental Representation
• Philosophy of Neuroscience
• Simulating Neurobiological Systems
• Neuroscience and Language