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TITLE
Assistant Professor
DEPARTMENT
Neurobiology & Behavior
HOME INSTITUTION
Stony Brook University, Neurobiology & Behavior
PHONE
(631) 632-3468 - office
EMAIL
WEBSITE
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TRAINING
I. Memming Park (박일) received a B.S. in computer science from KAIST in 2005. He received
an M.S. in electrical and computer engineering in 2007 and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering
in 2010 from the University of Florida working with José C. Principe. He was a postdoctoral
fellow (2010-2014) at the University of Texas at Austin working with Jonathan Pillow,
before he joined the faculty of neurobiology and behavior at Stony Brook University
in 2015.
RESEARCH INTERESTS/EXPERTISE
Many have proposed theories of how the brain works, but few of them have been rigorously
tested due to difficulties in obtaining sufficiently rich neural datasets. However,
recent advances in recording technology allow simultaneous observation of a large
population of neurons, providing the opportunity to use statistical and machine learning
tools to bridge the gap between theory and data in neuroscience. These neural signals
that are noisy and high-dimensional pose a significant challenge for analysis, because
(1) neural signals are non-linear & non-gaussian, and (2) the number of parameters
in models usually grows with the number of neurons, causing difficulties in estimation.I am interested in how information is encoded as spatiotemporal patterns of neural
activity, and how information is processed to perform specific computations within
and across brain areas. For instance, I analyze how visual motion is represented by
visual cortices, and how it is subsequently integrated over time to form decisions
that are represented in higher order cortices. I collaborate with experimental neurophysiologists
who record neural activities, and I model their data to find structures hidden in
noisy observations; structures within the signals themselves, and to relate neural
activity with external stimulus and behavior.
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