Michael Mannino ideaXme Neuro Ambassador
Michael Mannino, MA, Ph.D. Director of Computational Science, University of Miami.
My background is in the fields of neuroscience, complex systems, critical thinking, philosophy, and science communications. I recently completed my PhD in computational neuroscience, and complex systems, and have a masters in philosophy, specializing in the philosophy of mind and science. I am also an adjunct professor, teaching philosophy, critical thinking, ethics, and psychology. We are now understanding that the brain operates via complex networks as a self-organizing, nonlinear dynamical system, and the cognitive processes which constitute “the mind” occur as emergent, yet embodied relations coupled to the environment through actions of the moving body.
I would like to seek out the best researchers in fields contributing to this new understanding of the brain and it’s pathologies, and share their knowledge and findings with the public!
Further background:
I have a somewhat diverse background, which has given me a variety of competencies, and expertise in different domains. From my PhD in neuroscience and complex systems, I have scientific, mathematical, statistical, modeling and coding skills — an understanding of networks and their dynamics, complexity science, and coordination dynamics. My research was in computational cognitive neuroscience, and focused on complex information flow in large scale brain networks that subserve cognitive processes like attention, working memory, and perception; utilizing concepts like self-organization, emergence, pattern formation, nonlinear dynamics, chaos, information theory, and time series analysis. From my graduate work in philosophy, I have writing skills, critical thinking, logical, ethical, conceptual, analytical and problem solving, and strong communication skills, as well as being about to see the forest for the trees. My concentrations within philosophy are: philosophy of mind/consciousness, philosophy of science (including biology and physics), moral philosophy (including metaethics), philosophy of economics, and philosophy of religion. I also am currently an adjunct professor teaching philosophy, critical thinking, psychology and comparative religion at Miami Dade College in Miami, FL. My bachelors degree is in astrophysics and space sciences.
Overall, my three main passions are: fitness/exercise and functional movement (especially how that relates to the brain and a conceptual framework called embodied cognition), science communication (especially public speaking), science policy and scientific literacy, and all things brain, including brain computer interface, nootropics and cognitive enhancement, biohacking, neurotechnology, and brain related disorders.
