News & Events
ARUNAVA BANERJEE JOINS THE DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER AND INFORMATION SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING AS ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
October 10, 2003
GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Arunava Banerjee, a specialist in computational neuroscience, is researching theoretical questions to answer just exactly how the brain works. Because his interests overlap with cognitive science and neuroscience, he feels that being at the University of Florida provides a tremendous opportunity for interdisciplinary interaction thanks in part to Shands and The McKnight Brain Institute. "There are a lot of scholars here coming at various angles trying to understand the brain." Banerjee said. "It's a perfect fit for me." His interests span the related fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and theory of computation.
Computer science is uniquely positioned to identify computation in any of its various forms as embodied in a physical system such as the brain. The computational approach to the study of the human brain incorporates investigating it as the most spectacular computing device in existence, with over a trillion neurons constantly interacting with one another. "Current theories have been developed to address phenomena such as depression and hyperactivity at the local neuronal level." Banerjee explains. "However, when it comes to higher levels, such as the behavior of a system of neurons, there is no clear understanding yet." What Banerjee is looking for goes beyond a one-to-one correlation between how neurons work to how the system as a whole works. "
Banerjee's research includes the formulation of an abstract dynamical system that models recurrent networks of spiking biological neurons. During his doctoral work at Rutgers University in New Jersey, Banerjee was honored with the 2000-2001 "Rutgers University Graduate School Research Award." Another scholastic accomplishment was his being ranked 13th-out of more than 120,000 applicants-in the 1987 IIT-JEE exam.
Banerjee loves teaching and the opportunity for research that is inherent in his CISE faculty position. "The questions I ask are completely theoretical. I enjoy the academic environment of exploration that is not practical in industry where someone might demand you show them a marketable product in six months," Banerjee said. "In teaching, I love watching people going through the process of learning. In other words, I can sometimes glimpse in the students the Aha! expression when they understand something. It's exciting because it is the human experience part of what I am striving to accomplish: a complete theory that explains among other things how learning happens in the brain." He is impressed with his graduate students' ability to respond to challenges.
Looking forward to his wife's arrival in Gainesville from New Jersey, Banerjee remains hectically busy with his work. "Most of my time is taken up," Banarjee stated, "But I do go off on long drives with no set plan or destination. I do some of my best thinking on those drives."
CISE is proud to have that brain power here at UF on the faculty team.
Writer: Terri Bailey, 352-373-1041, TBailey567@aol.com
Source: Arunava Banerjuee, 352-392-6849, arunava@cise.ufl.edu
Arunava Banerjuee's webpage: www.cise.ufl.edu/~arunava/
