Dr. Norberto M. Grzywacz
Professor
Curriculum Vitae (PDF)
Phone: (213) 821-1150
Fax: (213) 821-3897
E-mail: nmg@bmsr.usc.edu
Background
Education:
- 1984 Ph.D. in Neurobiology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
- 1979 B.Sc. in Physics and Mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; received degree with honors.
Employment:
- 2003-Present Director of the Center for Vision Science and Technology, University of Southern California (USC).
- 2003-2004 Fellow of the USC Center for Interdisciplinary Research.
- 2001-Present Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, USC.
- 2001-Present Professor, Neuroscience Graduate Program, USC.
- 1994-2001 Senior Scientist at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute.
- 1993-1994 Scientist at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute.
- 1991-1993 Associate Scientist at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute.
- 1987-1990 Research Scientist at the Center for Biological Information Processing of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
- 1985-1986 Postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Biological Information Processing, MIT.
The long-term goal of our laboratory is to develop a framework to understand from multiple perspectives how the brain "sees" (About the Lab). To achieve this goal, it is necessary that our research be multidisciplinary. Our techniques include electrophysiology, calcium-fluorescence imaging, light and electron microscopy, immunohistochemistry, high performance liquid chromatography, psychophysics, and biophysical and computational modeling.
We have been applying these techniques to adult retina adult retinal circuits, to the development of retinal receptive fields, and to the perception of visual motion. More recently, we have also begun to pay attention to whether the retina may be optimized to perform certain kinds of computations underlying early vision. Relatedly, we have also begun studying visual perceptual learning from an optimization perspective.