Ed Boyden, Ph. D.

MIT Media Lab, Benesse Career Development Professor
Neuroengineering and Neuromedia Group, Leader
MIT Media Lab Center for Human Augmentation, co-director
MIT Department of Biological Engineering, MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, joint professor
MIT McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, associate member
MIT Computational and Systems Biology Initiative, faculty member
curriculum vitae / resume
email esb@media.mit.edu

My goal is to better understand the nature of human existence, and to engineer improvements thereupon. My group at the MIT Media Lab is inventing and applying new tools for the analysis and engineering of brain circuits, in order to devise new approaches for solving some of the intractable neurological and psychiatric problems of our time. As a corollary of this work, we also seek to develop methods of human brain augmentation.

NEWS
Want to support new, systematic approaches for treating neural disorders?
Interested in research or technical jobs in the Neuroengineering and Neuromedia Group?
We have recently been profiled in the Discovery Channel's Best 5 Science Moments of the Year, and awarded a NIH Director's New Innovator Award, an inaugural Society for Neuroscience 'Research Award for Innovation in Neuroscience', an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, a NARSAD Young Investigator Award, a Wallace H. Coulter Early Career Award, and a slot in Technology Review's Top 35 Innovators Under Age 35.
Technologies for controlling neural circuit dynamics
Multiple-color optical activation, silencing, and desynchronization of neural activity,
with halorhodopsin (Halo, NpHR) and Channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2)		 Millisecond-timescale optical activation of neurons with ChR2 OpenStim Noninvasive Brain Stimulator - open transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)
Blog Classes Inventions
My Blog, hosted by Technology Review Neurotechnology Ventures MAS.883 / 9.455 / 15.128 / 20.454 (Fall 2008) Principles of Neuroengineering MAS.881 / 9.422 / 20.452 (Fall 2008) Medical devices, information technologies, and uses for physics


Task-specific neural mechanisms of memory encoding
Selective engagement of plasticity mechanisms for motor memory storage Differential generalization of oppositely-directed learned changes Distributed plasticity for information encoding Mechanistic interaction of old and new encoded memories


The physics of computation, and the computation of physics
3D mouse interface using electric fields and OpenGL Tabletop NMR quantum computing (Master's thesis) FPGA-based RF tag reader (Master's thesis) Tree-based machine learning for violin physics simulation Control software for the MIT ORCA autonomous submarine
MEMS accelerometer using quantum tunneling A physics-based animation engine 'Everything I learned at MIT'


Photographs from selected adventures
Neural Systems and Behavior, Marine Biology Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole (2000) Southwest U.S., 2001 Napa, CA, 2001 Learning and Memory 2001, Cold Spring Harbor, NY Thailand, 2002
Point Reyes, CA, 2002, 2003 Trinity Alps, CA, 2002 Monterey, CA Mendocino, CA, 2003 San Juan Islands, Seattle, WA, 2003
Carnival, Brazil, 2003 Oxford, UK, 2003 Patagonia, Chile, 2004 Kauai, Hawaii, 2006

Useful resources
Conversion Factors, Material Properties and Constants


phone 617 324-3085 - fax 617 253-7035 - address Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT Media Lab - Room E15-430 - 20 Ames St. - Cambridge, MA 02139

Copyright © 1995-present, Ed Boyden