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Stephane A. Beaudin sb94 @ cornell.edu 106 Savage Hall      607-255-5803   [edit] Research Associate associated with: Tara L. Benedetto,   Barbara J. Strupp Keywords: Developmental Neurotoxicology (2), Learning and Memory (13), Systems Neuroscience (25) My current research interests are in the field of developmental neurotoxicology or neurobehavioral teratology. Ongoing projects focuse on characterizing at both the neurobehavioral and neurochemical levels the enduring impairments resulting from prenatal IV cocaine exposure with the goal of developing and validating pharmacological interventions. Other interests include neurobehavioral studies pertaining to the lasting effects of early low-levels lead exposure and its treament with the chelating agent succimer.

Sherry X. Xian xx37 @ cornell.edu 203 Uris Hall      607-255-7898   [edit] Research Associate associated with: David J. Field Keywords: Behavioral Neuroscience (9), Cognitive Neuroscience (17), color vision (1), Neurophysiology (5), Systems Neuroscience (25), Vision (11) I am interested in human perception, neural representation and natural scene statistics of color. Here in Cornell, I use psychophysical methods to measure perception of chromatic illusions which provide a good tool to test hypotheses about color processing in the brain. Together with Dr. David Field, we use both psychophysical and computational methods to study the natural scene statistics with special emphasis on color. Is our trichromacy shaped by natural scenes? Can we explain the formation of different visual pathways and color opponent receptive fields with computational models based on natural scenes? During my post-doctoral study at Stanford, I studied neuronal representation of color and color appearance in V4 using neurophysiology method, e.g. single-electrode recording in Dr. Tirin Moore¡¯s lab. We will continue to collaborate on these projects and will also study the influence of eye movements to processes along different visual pathways.

Robert A. Wyttenbach     (WEB PAGE) rw12 @ cornell.edu W209 S.G. Mudd Hall      607-254-4317   [edit] Research Associate Keywords: Auditory Neuroscience (5), Neuroethology (24) I am a senior research associate with Prof. Ron Hoy. My primary responsibility is development of multimedia teaching material for neuroscience and related fields. Our first project was a CD-ROM lab manual of neurophysiology (Crawdad, published by Sinauer Associates). I am wrapping up a set of lab exercises for experimental psychology, to be published this year. My current projects are a set of mathematical simulations of game theory models of animal behavior and a piece of software for real-time creation and analysis of sound. Funding for these projects comes from the NSF directorate for undergratuate education and from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor grant to Prof. Hoy.

Ben J. Arthur     (WEB PAGE) bja28 @ cornell.edu W253 Mudd Hall      607-254-4317 or -4349   [edit] Research Associate Keywords: Artificial Intelligence (3), Auditory Neuroscience (5), Cognitive Neuroscience (17), Computational Neuroscience (13), Language (5), Neuroethology (24), Sensorimotor Systems (11), Systems Neuroscience (25) I am interested in elucidating the neural mechanisms underlying behaviorally-relevant computations. Put simply, the brain is a big computer and I want to reverse engineer it. I focus on two behaviors mediated by the auditory system in particular: sound localization and, to a lesser extent, speech recognition. Collectively, determining what the sound is and where it's coming from are the two main tasks the auditory system of any species must solve. My study species of choice are Ormia ochracea and barn owls. The former are flies which parasitize crickets by using them as hosts for larvae; the latter are nocturnal predators which rely on field mice for food. In both cases, a highly-developed and specialized auditory system is used to both recognize and localize their targets. What drew me to studying neuroscience, instead of continuing my undergraduate education in computer science and psychology, was a disappointment with the design and performance of the algorithms used by the artificial intelligence community. My hope is to facilitate better progress towards the creation of an intelligent machine through delineating how nervous systems solve similar computational problems.

Please report corrections, questions, comments, and problems to: Lori Miller (lmm8 AT cornell.edu)