Mark Cohen will be talking about science as a humanity and as an art. Neuroscience, in particular, has made enormous progress in understanding, not just the physiology of the senses through which we appreciate art, but also in understanding the way in which evolution has created brain mechanisms that cause us to perceive our world in a certain way that enforces a sense of meaning onto the barrage of sensory information.
He will also say a few words about the difference between Art|Sci and Art|Technology and about what scientists, as individuals, do and do not know about the vast knowledge accumulated by artists.
About Mark Cohen
"Mark Cohen is a scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur. His training is equal parts engineering and neuroscience. Dr. Cohen has made many important contributions to clinical and research sciences, including dramatic advancements in the speed of MRI scanning, the development of functional MRI (the leading tool for understanding the intellectual workings of the human brain), and in many the domains of signal processing, statistics, imaging, acoustical engineering, and others. He is a professor at UCLA in the schools of medicine, engineering, and psychology. He also is the president of Clear View Designs, a consulting organization, and manufacturer of medical products.
Much of Cohen’s principal research concerns the general question of the relationship of the brain to the mind; how the structure of our brain controls the structure and contents of our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. His current focus now includes inquiry into the broader problems of images, beyond neuroscience, to encompass astronomy and nanoscale imaging, aesthetics to statistics, dimensional compression, and dimensional expansion.
Professor Cohen received his undergraduate education at Stanford University, and at MIT. He was employed at Siemens Medical Systems, and at Advanced NMR Systems, before accepting a position as an Assistant Professor at Harvard University, and later as a full Professor at UCLA, where he has worked since 1995. Cohen holds appointments in the UCLA Departments of Psychiatry, Neurology, Radiology, Biomedical Engineering, Psychology, and Biomedical Physics, and is a member of the California NanoSystems Institute. He lives in Pasadena, California.