THE 5TH ANNUAL SHARON COSLOY - EDWARD BLANK FAMILY DISTINGUISHED SCIENTIST LECTURE
"Brain Rhythms in Health and Disease" 

Online lecture presented by Dr. Nancy Kopell, Professor of Mathematics & Statistics, Boston University  

Dr. Nancy Kopell received her B.A. from Cornell University in 1963 and her Ph.D. from Berkeley in 1967. She is currently William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor at Boston University. She organized and directs the Cognitive Rhythms Collaborative (CRC), a group of over two dozen labs, mostly in the Boston Area, working on brain dyanmics and their cognitive implications.

Dr. Kopell’s Ph.D. training was in pure mathematics, but she transitioned to applied mathematics shortly after receiving her degree. In the first part of her career, she worked on pattern formation in chemical systems, oscillating systems and problems involving the geometry of systems with multiple time scales. For the last two decades, she has worked on mathematical problems in neuroscience. Her current interests parallel the themes of the CRC: how does the brain produce its dynamics (physiological mechanisms), how do brain rhythms take part in cognition (sensory processing, attention, memory, motor control), and how can pathologies of brain dynamics help to understand symptoms of neurological diseases (Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, epilepsy) as well as alternate states of consciousness (anesthesia). She collaborates widely with experimentalists and clinicians.

Dr. Kopell is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was recently selected to be an honorary member of the London Mathematical Society, a distinction given to one or two mathematicians per year worldwide. She has been awarded Sloan, Guggenheim, and McArthur Fellowships, and has an honory Ph.D. from the New Jersey Institute of Technology. She has given the Weldon Memorial Prize Lecture (Oxford), the von Neumann Lecture (SIAM) and the Josiah Willard Gibbs Lecture (AMS), as well as multiple other named lectureships.

ABOUT THE PROFESSOR SHARON COSLOY - EDWARD BLANK DISTINGUISHED SCIENTIST LECTURESHIP

Dr. Sharon Cosloy was a member of the City College biology faculty for 27 years and served as Chair of the Biology Department for six years. She was a beloved mentor, educator, wife and mother and a passionate investigator of life and science. The Professor Sharon Cosloy and Edward Blank Family Distinguished Scientist Lectureship is regarded as the preeminent scientific lecture on campus. The City College of New York is grateful to Edward Blank and his family for their generous support.

ABOUT THE CITY COLLEGE OF NEW YORK

Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high-quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its position at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.8% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. Labor analytics firm Emsi puts at $1.9 billion CCNY’s annual economic impact on the regional economy (5 boroughs and 5 adjacent counties) and quantifies the “for dollar” return on investment to students, taxpayers and society. At City College, more than 16,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity and scholarship. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic and visionary as New York City itself.

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