Education
Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts [2007-present]
- Ph.D. Candidate, Cognitive and Neural Systems
- GPA 4.0/40.
- Advised by Professor Timothy Gardner [Spring 2010-present]
- Advised by Professor Stephen Grossberg [2007-Spring 2010]
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland [2002-2006]
- B.A. in Philosophy and Writing Seminars
- GPA 3.88/4.0
- Undergraduate thesis advised by Professor Robert Rynasiewicz, "On Purposeful Behavior, its Analysis in the Behavioral Sciences, and its Philosophical Underpinnings"
St. Edmund Hall, Oxford University, Oxford, England [2004-2005]
- Non-degree study, concentrations in neuroscience, the philosophy of mind and pure mathematics
Professional and Laboratory Experience
Graduate Student, Boston University, Professor Timothy Gardner [Spring 2010-present]
Conducting an electrophysiological and molecular investigation of the role of spontaneous activity in the pre-motor area HVC of the zebra finch. Preliminary research involves characterizing this activity through the use of chronic multielectrode recordings and circuit perturbations with a bipolar electrode in an upstream nucleus. Then, using the first transgenic birds, we will use optogenetics to more precisely disturb this spontaneous activity and characterize its behavioral effects.
Graduate Student, Boston University, Professor Stephen Grossberg [2009-Spring 2010]
Conceived and implemented a dynamical, firing-rate model to describe the behavior of starburst amacrine cells and retinal ganglion cells that underlies the genesis of spontaneous traveling waves in the developing mammalian retina. The model also serves to explain how these waves drive the formation of the mature dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus. Accounts for the effects of intracellular cAMP, nACh receptors, and calcium-activated potassium channels in the retina, as well as neurotrophic factors (e.g. NT-4) in the retinogeniculate projection. Model was implemented in MATLAB as well as C for core numerical integration routines.
Lab Manager, Johns Hopkins University, Professor William Badecker [2006-2007]
Oversaw the Psycholinguistics Laboratory for doctoral candidate Rebecca Piorkowski, which included coding in PsyScope and managing undergraduate research assistants. Additional responsibilities included designing new experiments in E-Prime.
Research Assistant, Johns Hopkins University, Professor Robert Frank [2006-2007]
Conducted neural network simulations of language acquisition. Primary tasks included writing data parsers in Perl, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA),designing neural networks in Lens, and analyzing data with GNUplot.
Publications
Grossberg, S., Markowitz, J., and Cao, Y. On the Road to Invariant Recognition: Explaining Response Properties of Cells in Inferotemporal Cortex using Multiple-Scale Task-Sensitive Attentive Learning. (In Submission)
Abstracts
Markowitz, J., Cao, Y. and Grossberg, S. Cortical dynamics of invariant category learning and recognition of realistic objects. Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (2009). Naples, Florida. (Poster)
Cao, Y., Grossberg, S. and Markowitz, J. Learned reorganization of invariant object category selectivity in inferotemporal cortex during eye movement search. Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (2009). Naples, Florida. (Poster)
Markowitz, J., Cao, Y. and Grossberg, S. Cortical dynamics of invariant category learning and recognition of realistic objects. International Conference on Cognitive and Neural Systems (2009). Boston, Massachusetts. (Talk)
Cao, Y., Grossberg, S. and Markowitz, J. How does the selectivity of invariant object categories in the inferotemporal cortex get reorganized by learning during eye movement search? International Conference on Cognitive and Neural Systems (2009). Boston, Massachusetts. (Talk)
Markowitz, J., Cao, Y., and Grossberg, S.. Cortical Dynamics of Invariant Category Learning and Recognition of Realistic Objects. Society for Neuroscience (2009). Chicago, Illinois. (Talk)
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