Christof Koch, a professor of computation and neural systems at California Institute of Technology, will speak about his latest book "The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach," at 8 p.m., Monday (Aug. 1), in the Duane Smith Auditorium at Los Alamos High School as this summer’s J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial lecture. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is part of an annual series that began in 1972.
Koch’s work focuses primarily on the biophysics of computation and the neuronal basis of visual perception, attention and consciousness. Based on conceptual work done over the past 10 years with colleague Francis Crick, his book presents a neuroscientific approach to the problem of how consciousness arises out of the brain.
Koch received a master’s degree in physics in 1980 and a doctorate in nonlinear information processing in dendritic trees of arbitrary geometry in 1982 – both from the Max-Planck-Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany.
After four years as a post-doctoral fellow at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Department of Psychology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Koch joined Caltech in 1986. He has authored close to 300 scientific papers and journal articles, along with several books.
Koch’s lecture is sponsored by the J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Committee, a non-profit philanthropic organization that contributes to the Northern New Mexico community by sponsoring the annual lecture and funding and awarding scholarships to graduating high school seniors in Los Alamos, Pojoaque and Santa Fe. The committee also conducts other community-related activities as needed.
For more information contact Garrett Kenyon of Biological and Quantum Physics (P-21) at 7-1900.
