The greatest breakthroughs of the 21 century will be made by teams, pulled together without regard to traditional disciplinary barriers, working in a manner which transcends simple 'interdisciplinarity'. The popular label given to this idea is Convergence Science but, of course, these ideas transcend science to encompass the entirety of scholarship.
Computation, and mathematics, are well positioned to be important cornerstones upon which to build towards research convergence. They offer a common language, a unifying set of tools, and the ability to rigorously reason about problems at clearly defined, but arbitrary, levels of abstraction.
We are a research group in The Brain and Mind Institute and the Computer Science, Biology, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Statistics & Actuarial Sciences departments at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. We are also affiliated with the Lawson Health Research Institute, the Rotman Institute for the Philosophy of Science and the Vector Institute.
Our research group is devoted to the development of computational, and mathematical, methods and techniques for modelling, probing, and understanding, our world. Our work is necessarily collaborative, often transdisciplinary, and always striving to make a small contribution to the coming convergence.
Research Interests:
Current Research:
Our current research activities have been focussed on the mathematical and computational modelling of genetic processes as well as analyzing and modelling macroscopic functional connectivity in the brain.
The Globe & Mail recently covered work on a blood test for concussion to which we contributed.
You can read about some of our applied neuroscience research at itbusiness.ca, in Biotechnology Focus, in Hospital News, on IBM's Smarter Planet blog or watch another video produced by our partners at IBM. You can also watch Mark give a full length lecture for the general public that puts our work in historical perspective and listen to him talk about the power of the theory of computing on syndicated radio program Science for the People.
We also maintain an academic interest in the interaction between the technologies and concepts of computer science and the arts.
A list of publications can be found here.